Immortalis
by lotuskasumi
Summary: This is it. The end. There's three pillars left to break, two hearts to unite - and one Arte to understand. [Dark Fantasy AU. Hope x Lightning.] M for violence and graphic content.
1. Chapter 1 - Terms and Conditions

**Notes: **Content warning for graphic, violent imagery as a result of a car accident in the prologue's end.

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**Chapter 1 - **Terms and Conditions

At first there was the shrieking, a noise so high in pitch the very sound cut across his brain like a blade that bit through bone and flesh. And then there came the light, brilliant and wide, white and obliterating, the sort of light that rings a halo or burns out from the face of God - and then there was nothing. Neither pain nor fear, nor any other sensation appropriate for the situation. There was nothing alive inside of Hope's heart or mind. Nothing at all.

You must understand that this is a very natural thing. What else does one expect to happen to the dead?

When Hope opened his pale green eyes again, he was aware of a few things all at once. He was sitting upright, his arms laid flat and tight on the sides of a wooden chair built less for comfort and more for unease. He was in a room as cold and wide and grey as a concrete slab lit silver by a watchful moon, no longer in the car with his parents - or what remained of the car, and what little there was left of the aforementioned parents. Hope had a distinct impression that something awful had happened to them both, but try as he might to force his mind to the memory, his efforts turned up nothing but fading fog and smoke.

_Why can't I remember?_ he wondered, unable to find his voice to say the words out loud. _Though really, who would he say them to? Do I not want to?_

A few feet ahead of him, half-blanketed in shadow, was a long desk behind which sat a figure that seemed all the more ominous for how it loomed in the dark. Hope kept his eyes locked onto this shape, wondering if it was friend or foe - then wondering what it would be like to even _have_ a foe, because his life up to this point had been by and large uneventful in the ways of enemies. Hope had known people who annoyed him, yes; he'd also known people who got under his skin and seemed intent to contort every nerve into a knot that made him ache, just as he'd known people who made the blood boil as it raced into and out of his heart. But these were minor annoyances and inconveniences, people whose simple existences clashed with his own. It was part of the delightfully mad dance known as _being alive._

But he'd never hated them enough to call them _enemies._

_Does that matter? Does that even really matter?_ Hope's voice couldn't move from its silent thought to the more weighty, valid presence of sound, which only made him stare longer into the darkness ahead of him and grow anxious at its looming shape. _What's it doing? Why's it staring at me? Why am I even here?_

Hope looked down at his hands, unable to fully process inside his mind that they were, indeed, his own hands that he was now trying to lift off the arm rests. His brain seemed to be floating in a realm far above and beyond where his body now sat, and each command his mind silently gave became a chore for the body to even attempt to perform. No matter how many times he tried, Hope couldn't lift even a finger off the edges of the chair. Hope also couldn't look to the right or left, to see how far away and wide this bizarre, grey expanse went. He could only look up at the shadow sitting before him, or down at his hands, barely twitching from where they'd been laid to rest.

_What's happening to me?_

As if aware of this silent question, as if aware all along of the thoughts that festered inside of Hope's mind, the shadow behind the desk raised a long, dark appendage - _an arm, most likely_ - and waved Hope closer.

_Does it know I can't move?_ Hope wondered with a little bite to the thought, just before the chair jolted forward and the room seemed to snap in half, eliminating the distance between Hope and the figure behind the desk.

_That's one way around it, I guess._

Hope kept his eyes locked to the shadow moving just an arm's length from him now. The same appendage that had reached out to bend the room in half to draw Hope closer was now reaching out to its left, pulling at a little lump on the edge of the desk. Hope watched as the shape of a lamp emerged from these efforts, complete with a little dangling chain that shuddered as if recently touched. With a casual flick of its dark arm the shadow pulled the chain down with a snap and light flared out across itself, illuminating what had otherwise been void.

One look was all Hope needed to know that he had absolutely no idea who this person was. A man with a face long-aged and weathered sat in front of him, traces of grey hair emerging from a rather impressive looking white and gold hat, decorated with a veil that parted just enough to reveal a long, crooked nose and a thin, pale mouth. The eyes that stayed behind the veil looked cloudy and blind, but they moved over Hope with such careful precision that he was certain the man in front of him could not only see, he saw better than most. The light violet gaze left Hope feeling thoroughly gutted, as if the eyes were blades and he were the prize kill awaiting the final cut.

Something amused the man long enough to make his pale lips twitch and a little snort of laughter to emerge from that crooked nose and parted mouth. His laughter was a wet, harsh sound, the kind that normally preceeds a cough deep enough to choke whoever makes it. It made Hope feel sick just to hear it.

"Welcome, Mr. Estheim," the man said, extending both of his hands in a gesture of greeting. The shadows once clinging to them fell away like dust being shaken off, revealing sterling white robes to match is peculiar headdress.

Hope looked for a second longer at the man's hands - their gnarled, thin fingers, the uncommonly long nails, almost filed to a point - before forcing his eyes back to the man's face. "How did you know - ?"

The man didn't wait for Hope to finish speaking before he began again. "Allow me to tell you where you are and why you are here."

_Helpful_. But a little knot of doubt inside of Hope's heart began to twinge at this relatively easy reveal of information.

The man folded his hands one over the other on his desk and lifted his head up so that he stared down the length of his nose at Hope, giving the illusion that he was higher up than the younger man. "Welcome to the Void Beyond, a realm neither here nor there - a _neither_-world, if you prefer. I do hope the transition was made with relative ease."

"How'd I get here?" Hope asked.

"You died," the man said, with the same ease one comments on the time of day. _It's a little past noon, the sun's out, and you shuffled off this mortal coil. How's that going for you?_

"... Am I still dead?"

The man chuckled again at this, tilting his head to the side to gaze at Hope. "You're nearly there, I'd say. Certainly no longer alive... but you aren't fully dead, either."

A neither-world, Hope said to himself, trying out the words and the thought for himself. "So how do I go back?"

"Do you want to go back?"

"I'd like to, yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be? It's not like I tried to die."

Silence fell between the two of them. Hope tried not to look at the man, and the man seemed quite content in staring down at Hope as if he were watching a bug in its final throes of life before the heel came down.

"That can be arranged, Mr. Estheim."

"What, going back?"

The man nodded once and separated his hands. Beneath each set of splayed fingers, two pieces of paper appeared. They seemed to glow under the man's touch, and Hope leaned back just a little as the man slid the pages across his desk and closer to where Hope sat. From the darkness of the man's pristine sleeve, a long, golden pen emerged, complete with a pointed tip. He held it out for Hope to take, but Hope kept his hands firmly planted on the arm rests.

"What is this?" he asked, glancing between the faintly glowing pages, whose words he could barely make out beneath the obstruction of the man's fingers.

"The conditions of your resurrection, as well as your new terms of mortal service."

Hope stared at the pages in front of him, dimly aware that he was now moving both of his arms out to slip his fingers over the edges of each sheet and spin them round to face him. The words the man said made little sense, and what was written on the papers only added to this confusion.

"I don't... I don't get it. Why do I have to sign anything?"

The man took out another golden pen from his other sleeve and began to point at a few lines of text, drawing Hope's eyes to the words that had otherwise been vaguely, black blurs and smears. "'_To retranspose your soul back into its recently vacated vessel'_ - that being the body you currently reside in, Mr. Estheim - _'you hereby agree to accept the limitations, freedoms, consequences, risks, and potentially traumatizing after-effects of the procedure'_ - which are exactly what you might be expecting them to be - _'and by signing below waive your rights to lodge any cosmic complaints against the Primarch_' - that being yours truly - _'up to and including counter measures, quests for vengeance, or strongly worded letters, et cetera'_."

"Is this a joke?"

"No, Mr. Estheim. It's an offer." The man moved the pen point to a line at the bottom of the page and circled it. The ink gleamed like blood freshly spilled. "Sign here when you're ready."

Hope's hand moved cautiously to pick up the pen, then to skim over what little he could properly understand about the papers he was signing. _It's a contract, clearly_. That much was obvious. But for what? No matter how much Hope tried to read them, the words refused to stay pinned down beneath his eyes, unlike they had when the man spoke. Hope's head began to ache the longer he tried to make sense of the words, which looked more and more like a random assortment of symbols, and less an actual language that could be deciphered.

"Will it hurt?" he asked, gnawing on the inside of his cheek after the question came out. _Of course it will. Why wouldn't it?_

"I'm not entirely sure," the man said - _the Primarch_, Hope corrected. He didn't seem the least bit concerned by the question, or the very probable levels of pain Hope was facing should he agree to these terms and conditions. "I've never had it done to me and I don't recall those to whom I've done it to ever bringing it up in subsequent conversations."

"So we'll be in touch," Hope began, twisting the pen between his fingers and glancing up at the Primarch. He worked to keep his expression neutral and his voice light, but it was getting harder to keep himself under any kind of control. The Primarch's stare was far too biting for that and his speech went beyond the realm of eerie, not just the voice but the overall tone. Hope didn't see how he could hate the man who was not only a veritable stranger, but also offering to bring Hope back to life, yet he couldn't help but regard this bizarre, venerable-looking stranger as the closest thing to an enemy that had ever appeared in his life so far.

_Or after-life, _Hope corrected._ Or... almost-after-life. Whatever this is. What I am._

"Does that prospect bother you, Mr. Estheim?" the Primarch asked, his lips moving into a small smile.

"I'll have to see how it goes first. Then I'll let you know."

The Primarch laughed. "A charming answer. And so different from your predecessor. She was more forthcoming in her opinion."  
Hope ignored this comment, not knowing what to make of it - but also too scared to think much of it. He couldn't help but focus on the pronouns, however, and the way it made his heart jolt inside of his chest, as if he really were alive again. _She. Her. Could it be...?_

Hope didn't realize he had signed the first paper until it was being tugged away from him, the new batch of red ink glistening as it disappeared into the Primarch's grasp.

"And the other, if you please. The terms of service," he said, addressing Hope's silent curiosity.

"_What_ service?" Hope asked, less eager to sign on the lines that the Primarch was circling for him.

"You'll find out upon revival. I'll have an associate explain the details to you."

"Why can't you do it now?"

"Because I am a very busy man who must conserve his energy for the next step of the process, which is incidentally very difficult and rather more pressing than answering your questions." The Primarch folded his hands again and leveled a blank, bottomless stare at Hope. "Whenever you're ready, Mr. Estheim," he said.

But Hope could hear the underlying message. _Don't keep me waiting. I haven't the patience for this._

Which only made Hope wonder why this man was offering to do this at all. _What does he get out of it? What could he gain?_

In the end, it was a terrifyingly simple choice to make for a situation that housed such high stakes. Hope didn't want to die, and he certainly didn't intend to let a chance to reverse the process slip by him. Whether or not he had enjoyed his life up to this point was another matter entirely, and one he didn't like to think about as he shut his eyes and waited for the Primarch to do whatever it was he had to do to send Hope back again. _The point is I don't want to be dead - that's just as good was wanting to live. The only difference is the phrasing._

"Thank you for your consensual cooperation, Mr. Estheim. It is greatly appreciated." The Primarch pulled the other paper back and offered Hope a smile that was neither genuine nor returned. "Perhaps you should close your eyes for this next part."

"Why?"

"Because most people do."

Hope kept his eyes closed for a very long time before something happened. And when it did happen, it wasn't as dramatic or even elaborate as he had been expecting. The only changes he felt were a pressure moving slowly over his eyes and ears, as if a skin-tight lid were being forced over his head. And after a momentary burning that moved through his chest, starting from his heart and spiking up to his throat, trapping air and words inside, Hope's body went back to feeling as detached and weightless as it had when he first appeared in front of the Primarch's desk.

_Is it over? Am I back?_ Hope's thoughts faded into the empty shadows of his own mind and the world that lived behind his eyes, which refused to open no matter how he tried to trick himself into doing just that. _Will she be there, too? Is she okay? And what about my - ?_

He didn't get a chance to finish the thought. In a series of painful, jarring jolts and aches, Hope was wrenched violently out of the Void Beyond and placed back into the World that Is.

He could taste blood in his mouth, as well as the cold bite of broken glass. Sirens were howling all around him, and when he opened his eyes he saw the blinding flash of red, blue, and silver lights.

_Ambulance_. Hope wondered who had called them and if he should thank them for their concern. But when he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a bloody, wet groan of pain that soon turned into a sob. Hope waited in vain for his parents to respond to the sound, as parents often did when their children were in distress. He could rely on them to care and to show it, even if he was fully an adult now. His mother had said something like that, around the time he first moved out to get a place of his own. _"You can get as old as you want, but you'll always be my child."_ Hope had forced a laugh at that, shaking his head to hide his frustration.

But they didn't move at all now. A bitter little voice in the back of Hope's aching head told him he should have expected this. You couldn't ask for much from people who were broken in half and missing vital organs and limbs, even if they were your parents. They were only mortal, after all.

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**Notes: **The last time I attempted a multi-chapter AU fic for this pairing and this fandom, I ended up abandoning it. Sorry, folks. D: I'm hoping to avoid that problem this time around, because I rather like this idea and the potential it holds. I hope some of you enjoy it enough to stick around!


	2. Chapter 2 - Misery Loves Company

**Chapter 2 - Misery Loves Company**

Hope's senses returned to him in vague bursts throughout the haze of pain and morphine drips over the next few hours. He became dimly aware of a high pitched, distant beeping somewhere over his head, a steady sound like metal on metal, or perhaps a machine on the fritz. It was less invasive and painful than the shrieking from before, which Hope knew could only have been the tires of the car squealing across the pavement. But the less he thought about that memory, the happier he'd be. He also became aware of a pressure on his legs and arms, like weights were tied to each limb, rooting him to a position that rendered him mostly immobile.

And he also realized that he wasn't alone in the room. Someone was sitting beside his bed, keeping a close eye on him. He could feel their presence as well as the weight of their gaze, like a hand clinging to his sleeve, rooting him to something like consciousness, no matter how hard his mind fought to fade.

Hope spent a good half hour trying his best to look at whoever this person was. Had to be a nurse, or a doctor - he didn't have any family left now to visit him. That thought made him sad, but only distantly so. It was a pain that would come rushing in when he was sober again.

Hope worked hard to make sense out of the colors and shapes he was seeing. Pink and silver were prominent amongst them, along with wavy lines and thin slopes. He watched the shapes move about the room and around the edges of the figure seated next to him, wishing that the world could pin itself down before it made him sick. _A rose_, he thought, barely able to turn his head to look at the figure. When he managed to move it was only through much pain and effort, complete with clenched teeth and jagged hisses of breath. _No, that's stupid. Not a rose. A woman - a woman with rose-colored hair. _That was more accurate, but still bizarre - he'd never seen hair that color before, such a pale blonde that in the light it seemed almost pink.

_Why does it matter? Why are you even thinking about this? Your parents are - you almost..._

"Can you hear me?" the person sitting next to him said. Hope could hear a faint tone of frustration in the question, the sort of aggravated huff that usually precedes a sigh or a shake of the head. _Like me whenever I'm tutoring someone who just doesn't get it. _The image of Hope as a student fluttered across his mind's eye, indistinct and absent of emotion. As if it were a memory of someone else, another life, another time entirely...

"I know you're awake," the voice continued, in a tone more clipped than before. "So say something."

A muscle twitched in his cheek, bringing with it the faint impression of annoyance. He didn't know why a stranger should talk to him this way, especially considering his current condition. _Whatever happened to decent bedside manner? _he wondered, in a sort of distant fog of thought that was also bogged down by the insistent beeping of the nearby machine, the weight on his body, and the off-white color scheme of the room they'd given him. _She's got as much charm as a hornet._

_That doesn't make sense, _a tiny voice piped up from the back of Hope's mind, the one part of him unaffected by either pain or medication meant to take that away. He ignored this and continued to examine his only companion in the room.

Without a doubt, it was the rose-colored figure, and as his brain began to piece together what his eyes were going over, the figure soon turned into a woman with eyes as sharp as knives and pale blue as a spring sky, free of any clouds or distant storms. She was wearing a hospital uniform, but had neither a card identifying her clipped to the front pocket, nor the expected patient, sympathetic air of a medical worker. _Is she in disguise? But why?_ The woman seemed bored, distant, and eager to leave - which, the sober voice in the back of his mind cut in again, didn't necessarily mean she didn't work there. _Could be working a long shift and she just wants to go home_.

_But I'm a patient, _he complained silently, in a voice that sounded disastrously close to how his younger self might be, were he in this situation. _And she's... she's... Can't she be a little nicer?_

The woman leaned in close, focusing her eyes on Hope's face as if there was nothing else in the room that could hold her attention.

_If looks could kill, she'd drop me down flat. _He found himself trying to smile and laugh, and making nothing but an odd, clunky croak in exchange.

The woman folded her arms tightly over her chest and began to pull at her bottom lip with her teeth. "I'll take that as a yes," she said, leaning her arms on her crossed legs and considering Hope in a moment of tense silence. "You're Hope Estheim, right?" she asked.

Hope did something like a nod, only his head lolled against the pillow in a limp flop. The pillow crinkled beneath him, making the sound of crackling husks and broken straw. Not at all comfortable, but the drip they had him on was filtering most of the hurt. "That's what they call me," he slurred. _Parents... that's what my parents - _

_Don't think about them, _the sober voice demanded. _Stop that. Stop it now._

The woman nodded once, oblivious to Hope's internal arguing. "You met the Primarch. You signed the contract." No questions this time, just pure, simple facts delivered as cold and straight as a slap to the head.

Hope did something like a nod again. "Ugly guy. Terrible manners. You'd get along well," he said, wanting to say more about how unfriendly she seemed, about how she gave off an entire air that screamed how little she cared to be looked at or spoken to in any way, but the words got cluttered on his tongue.

The woman glared at him, her nostrils flaring as if she were about to rise up and start yelling - but she must have had practice in keeping her temper in check, at least around people who let drugs loosen their tongues and make them speak thoughts they'd otherwise keep to themselves. It took her a few seconds, but she soon took a quick, short breath and turned her attention to something else, pretending that it held more fascination than Hope's expectant, curious face. "I met him, too. A while ago. He might have mentioned me... I'm... I'm not sure. Sometimes it's different."

"Mentioned someone," Hope muttered.

"That's good. I'm your partner. You can call me Lightning."

Hope's mind brought up the image of blinding white light, of reds and blues and silvers intersecting. "Is that really your name?" he asked.

"It's the name I go by," she said, each word like a bite. "And you'll use it for as long as we're together."

Hope didn't have the energy to question this, and her tone left little room for an argument. _She must be used to giving orders._ "Why are you here?" he asked.

Lightning frowned as she turned her eyes back to him. "To talk to you. To... explain a few things. You _do_ have questions, right?"

"Lots." Hope took in a long breath - and then started to cough, a spike of pain jolting through his ribs and up to the back of his throat.

Lightning immediately darted her hands out at the sight of his distress, but they hovered uselessly around him, unsure where she should touch, or if she should even bother. She chewed on her lips again and drew her hands back until they were resting as fists on her lap.

"Maybe you should hold off on that for a bit," she said, eyeing Hope as he regained his breath and resumed a somewhat comfortable position on the bed. "I'll... I'll just explain what I know and um, then I'll let you get some rest." She glanced up at the clock on the wall, the red digital numbers blaring hard along the fat black panel. "Visiting hours are almost over, and I've got something to do before I leave."

_Good, cus I wanna sleep. _Hope's thoughts were turning petulant now, denied of sleep and answers.

Her tone had shifted from cool, casual dismissal to a tense voice close to snapping, like glass being forced against the edges of a diamond. It might not break, but it would be cut. "You're like me now, pulled out from the Void Beyond with a second chance at life, but it comes with a price."

"Terms and Conditions," Hope said.

Lightning nodded. "So you remember. That's good. Sometimes people don't."

"How many more are like us?"

Lightning paused. "You're the only other one I know about," she said. She cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter, staring at a piece of lint on Hope's blanket, next to his bandaged hand. There were bruises all along what parts of his fingers were shown beneath the gauze and white wrap. "I wanted to ask, before I get into the rest of it... Have you noticed anything strange lately?"

Hope stared at Lightning for a long time. _Is she serious? _he thought, trying not to laugh. "Besides the grim reaper looking like a creepy old man?"

That got Lightning to chuckle, but only once, and dryly at that. "Yeah, I mean besides that. Has anyone been... following you, leaving strange messages, things like that?"

"I don't know," Hope said. And in that moment he truly didn't. His brain would not comply with the command to think.

Lightning chewed on her lip. "Okay then, have you been at least been paying attention to the news? See anything odd there?"

_What the hell does it matter? _Trying to think back to even a minute before the accident was like forcing himself to pass through a solid wall. There was nothing for him in the past, nothing that he could remember with any clarity - it was all blurred shapes and contorted figures, sometimes accompanied by emotion and otherwise appearing as flat snapshots. Nothing concrete or distinct at all. And though Hope knew it had to be the drugs or the trauma, he found himself wishing it would stay this way. _There's nothing I want to remember. There's nothing I'd regret forgetting._

_Don't be so sure, _the sober voice said.

Hope shook his head, answering both the voice inside and Lightning. "I really... I don't..."

"It's okay," Lightning cut across him. "I really didn't expect you to know anything, to be honest."

The part of Hope's brain not clouded over by drugs took offense to that. "It'd help if you were more specific," he argued, but his voice was weightless, his anger without heat. "We live in a city. Cities have crime rates. Bad things happens."

"_Bad_ things, sure," Lightning countered, raising an eyebrow at him. "But _bad _is different from _strange_, Mr. Estheim."

"Hope."

"What?"

"Just... just call me Hope." He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the machine beeping. _My heartbeat. _It was steady and soft, and he could feel it pounding along the side of his throat that seized up around the next batch of words. "My father's Mr. Estheim. Or... he was."

The pair of them listened to the machine ticking off Hope's heart rate in silence. It was a lonely sound, surrounded by distant murmurs of other patients and hospital staff. Somewhere a child started to cry, and was silenced immediately.

"I'm... sorry," Lightning began, clearly uncomfortable with the change of topic. She looked briefly at Hope's bruised face with as much sympathy as two strangers could muster up for each other. "For your loss. I know it's not easy. And I'm not gonna lie to you, it won't get any easier from here. But hey, misery loves company, right?"

Hope said nothing. _Of__ course it's not easy,_ he grumbled internally._ What could you know about it? _Bitter thoughts crowded up inside of Hope's mind, but they lost their way to becoming words, and so they could only fester further inside his head.

The minutes passed, and the silence continued.

"I'm gonna go." Lightning said after she'd had her fill of it. She stood up, her eyes still on Hope's face.

"You haven't explained anything yet," he said, but he had to admit there was little interest inside him for listening to another word Lightning might have to say. He had no energy, no strength, no desire for anything at all besides sleep and its peaceful oblivion.

"No, I haven't," she agreed. "But I can do that later, once you've recovered a bit."

"That'll take a while," Hope argued, glancing down at himself. _Can I even move my legs? _The thought made him panic - he hadn't even thought to try.

"You were pretty lucky, all things considered. But still... you might need some help," Lightning said, but if she was going to elaborate more on this point, she stopped herself from doing so with a tight snap of her jaw clamping shut.

A voice came over the intercom system, calling for a Dr. Wos to room 201.

"Shit," Lightning hissed.

Hope opened his eyes to look at Lightning backing slowly away from him, her expression marred by frustration.

"I've gotta go. I'll be back, okay? I'm coming back." She began to turn to the doorway but stopped just before crossing the threshold, as if a line had pulled taut and gone as far as its length could go. Lightning's shoulders tensed as she spun back around to look at Hope again. He blinked once, watching her stomp closer to him. She held out her hands again, reaching for Hope's forehead, while the other landed on his shoulder in a soft grip.

"Almost forgot," she muttered. A little flush of pink appeared on her cheeks, then faded fast as she caught Hope's eyes. "This'll take a second. Hold still."

"And close my eyes?" Hope asked, thinking back to the Primarch's command.

Lightning shook her head. "No. Keep your eyes on me."

A faint twinge of warmth passed through the pair of them, either by the linked gaze or the fact that Lightning was holding one hand flat against Hope's forehead and using the other to give his tense shoulder a soft, comforting squeeze. Strangers or not, and no matter how rigid she had been in the earlier moments of their conversation, Hope couldn't help but enjoy this little moment of unexpected kindness. It was the sort of touch that friends give to one another, offering support when words would only fail.

Whether it was the drugs, the head trauma, or actually happening before his very eyes, a faint white light seemed to blossom out from the very edges of Lightning's skin, starting with the part of her chest just above her heart. It was bizarrely gentle, unexpectedly so, especially since it was coming from a woman who had otherwise had all the warmth of a stone. The weight inside of his chest seemed to lift at the presence of this light, and Hope marveled at the warmth spreading down to his fingertips and along the length of his legs, removing the heavy weight that had been burdening him since he first woke up. His thoughts soon became clear, as if a long, low breath had exhaled to cut through the fog that burdened his mind since he'd left death and all its waiting oblivion behind. But just as the light was warm and the new-found clarity a source of joy, it also brought a consequence he found hard to ignore.

Hope waited for the pain to rush in, for the tears to start and for a scream to take form inside his chest, eager to come out and impossible to placate. If his mind was clearing that meant he could think, he could feel - and if he could think and feel, then he would only suffer, as he had suffered when they wrenched him from the wreckage and the remains of the only people he'd ever loved. Hope knew he shouldn't shut his eyes, and he fought hard against the urge, trusting in the light that was passing over and through him, and the gentle way in which Lightning was now stroking his shoulder, as if eager to take the pain out but unsure how to go about doing so. He waited for the agony, clenching his teeth hard inside his jaw as he counted down inside his head.

But it never showed.

Caught as he was in Lightning's gaze and under her soft touch, Hope knew something like peace, the closest thing to it in the aftermath of the last batch of dark hours...

... And it disappeared the instant her hands lifted. "That should keep you going for a while," she said, backing away from him. "I'll explain more later, when I come back."

The warmth and the light began to fade the further back she retreated, and Hope watched in silence as she darted out of the room without another word or a look back.

"Thanks, I guess," Hope said to himself, his voice filling up the room that had grown strangely lonely without Lightning there. It was impossible to miss her, and yet a part of him already did. _Who else have I got left but her? A strange girl who sneaks around hospitals and glows like a night-light._ At least the nickname made a little more sense laughed for the first time since he woke up but there was no joy in the sound, no mirth or pleasure at all - just dust and hollow echoes, an imitation of happiness.

He was fighting back tears by the time Dr. Wos arrived.

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**Notes: **Just wanted to clarify that the "weight" Hope feels in his arms and legs is because of the drugs and the injuries. He can still move.

For the record, btw, Hope's 27 in this fic. I'll actually mention it directly in the story later, but I wanted to just specify in the notes since it's vague at the mo'.


	3. Chapter 3 - Keep Watch

**Notes: **I said it in the notes at the end of the previous chapter, but just in case some missed it: Hope's 27 in this fic.

Also, please be advised there's a graphic content warning on this chapter as well, for violent imagery/slight gore. The rating may increase in subsequent chapters because of it. Not sure. I'm a terrible judge of these things.

* * *

**Chapter 3 – **Keep Watch

"You said you were going to help him," Lightning said, looking at her wan reflection in the window as the city lights became golden embers in the night. Eden was almost beautiful in these few moments where the sun set and twilight crept in close. It almost lived up to its name. "You said you were going to help him, and instead you did nothing. Congratulations."

Lightning leaned her arm against the window pane, which was ice cold against her skin, making her hair stand on edge. She rested her forehead against her arm, ignoring the trembling muscles that ran the length from her shoulder down to her fingertips. She was tired – bone-weary and thoroughly gutted, in all honesty, as she usually was after bursts of power – but the idea of sleep appealed to her as much as prying her teeth out with fishing knives. Every nerve was alive and uneasy. Every instinct in her was on edge, shrieking silent words of caution.

_They're out there, somewhere. The enemy. And you can't rest until you find them._

Lightning peeked quickly, out of the corner of her eyes, at the bed in the corner of the room. It had never looked more inviting, and had never been more off limits. It was just a thin slab of a mattress propped up on bowed little wooden legs, with the mint green quilt and little lumps of pillows that had been thoroughly pummeled into more comfortable shapes. Lightning could feel her body's tension evaporate at the thought of curling up in a little comfortable knot inside the blanket and sheets – but how could she even think of sleeping at a time like this? _You have to stay up. You have to keep watch. What's more important than doing your job?_

Quit viciously, she easily thought of a few reasons. _Because without rest you get sloppy, and when you get sloppy people get hurt._

_Because you've got work to do, and someone to work with now – the last thing you should ever be is dead weight._

_Because you're tired. And when you're tired, you shut up and go to sleep. Why do you need another reason besides that?_

Lightning shook her head in an effort to cast off every argument, no matter how sensible each one seemed. "If you'd done your job and told him everything right off the bat, then you would've been able to get some rest tonight," she argued, saying the words out loud because that made it easier to accept. "That was the deal, remember? Come clean, and then you can relax. But you didn't. You backed off, because you were being soft. And now you've got to pay for that."

Closing her hand into a fist, Lightning lowered her arm and gave a weary sigh. She hadn't meant to bungle her meeting with Hope as spectacularly as she did. Every ounce of preparation she'd put herself through before walking into that hospital room had evaporated the moment that he'd turned to look at her, pinning her with such wretchedly sad eyes. Beneath a gaze like that, Lightning felt the closest thing to heartache, a true and sincere sympathy, even if the two of them were still pretty much strangers. How could he stand to look like that? So vulnerable, so bare.

Lightning had to laugh at herself. "His parents were just killed, and he was convalescing in a hospital bed on who knows how many drugs. Don't get so hung up on a some miserable puppy look born out of a morphine drip. Get some perspective."

But the image of Hope, gauze-wrapped and bruised, with shallow cuts framing those sad eyes and charming little mouth, refused to fade from her mind's eye. Lightning focused on their details as she folded her arms and took a step back from the window, running her hands over her ice cold skin.

_I've seen eyes like that before. In mirrors. In other partners. In dreams._ The sight never failed to hurt, and that hurt never failed to prickle her anger. It bothered Lightning, that she should care so much when there were more important things facing her in that moment, besides the comfort of a man in the same precarious position as her. _We're partners now – we're both Guardians. They'll be time for tears later._ Telling herself this, as she looked at Hope's bruised and battered body lying flat on the hospital bed, Lightning worked hard to crush that sympathy into a little knot inside her chest, shoving it aside for a later hour.

_It's your fault it got in the way. You should've known better._

In her defense, Lightning had to argue that it could have gone an hell of a lot worse than it had. _Look at Snow, _she pointed out, opening her eyes and seeing not the landscape of the city street below her, but the once bright and exasperatingly determined expression of the man she'd once known.

_On second thought, scratch that. Don't think about Snow. _Lightning very carefully closed off what remained of her sympathy for the lost comrade, and counted each long, measured breath she took. By the time she reached thirteen, her pulse had returned to its natural pace, slow, steady, like a pendulum keeping time.

"Tomorrow," Lightning said, closing her eyes and lowering her head once in a short, terse nod. "I'll tell him everything tomorrow." Hope should be a little better by then, thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, and Lightning's own interference.

Not that it mattered much. She could help speed up the recovery process, but she couldn't take away everything that hurt. She couldn't take the ache out of the scars that were buried deep inside. It was a lesson she had learned several times before with Snow, with herself.

_And Serah._

Lightning stared out the window, watching as night fell in full, coating the city in a shroud of starless black. She kept her eyes open wide, letting not a single tear fall.

_I won't fail this time. I won't. I can't._

* * *

For once in his life, Hope didn't need to sleep to have strange dreams. The more sinister creations of his imagination were kind enough to come to him when the drugs wore off and confusion settled in, forcing the room's otherwise benign shadows to creep in closer until they loomed large and oppressive around his bed.

At first Hope didn't recognize the shades. They were nondescript and typical for eerie apparitions: pale as bone and with sunken, hollow eyes that matched the warped, black wounds their mouths had once been. Every hand they raised up became a menace equal to a weapon, every finger they pointed his way – gnarled and thin, so similar to the Primarch's – came loaded with silent accusations.

_You should have died. It should have been _you_._

_How could you have left your family behind? They were waiting for you – they miss you. And you turned your back on them._

_You abandoned them. You _left _them._

_Selfish bastard. Idiot. Liar, liar, liar. Fool._

_Was it worth it? I hope it was worth it. _This shade looked and sounded like his father, though upgraded to fit the current state of Bartholomew Estheim's body, embedded with glass and marred with wounds that gaped and wept ink dark blood. There was a gash in the man's throat that was split wide like a mouth, and he kept one hand pressed to the wound as if to squeeze the skin together in an effort to seal it shut again.

Hope kept his eyes locked onto the specter-version of his father's, fighting hard to ignore the sickness that churned inside his gut at the older man's injuries. _Think about something else. Something, anything._

Hope remembered that same awful stern gaze flashing out from beneath a pair of thin spectacles, neither pleased nor proud, unless he was regarding his wife in rare moments of kindness. Hope remembered the air of tension that emanated off his very skin, a strain that only his wife had been immune to and even in some ways fond of, considering how long they'd been together. It was their thirtieth anniversary, the night of the accident – Hope had gone out to celebrate with them, and had begrudgingly accepted a lift back to the dorm. Hope may have abandoned the disgust he felt for his father in his earlier years, as a teenager, in exchange for amicable tolerance now as an adult, but _tolerating _was a far cry from acceptance. And it was nothing at all like love.

_I never would've given up on you, Hope. I never would've turned my back until I was sure you were by my side. _This shade looked and sounded like his mother, and that hurt Hope more than he could bear. _Don't think about it, don't think about it, do not even think about it. _It strained his mind to the point of pure agony, his heart racing at the thought, forcing the monitor's once steady beeps to rise into a near cacophonous howl. Nurses came running at the sound, trying their best to settle him down with words and injections and eyes so full of pity. Hope didn't know how to tell him that the last thing he wanted was to sleep, that there'd be no point in trying to get any rest. The shadows were with him no matter what state he was in. They'd probably follow him for the rest of this awful life.

He decided soon after their first appearance, that it would be best to keep these ghostly visits to himself. Hope was always alone when these shadows came to see him, and he had no doubt that the hospital staff would pass off the visions as trauma and the side effects of so much flowing through his system at once. In exchange for this assumed dismissal, Hope took on the role of the most model patient: quiet and obedient, but seething hideously beneath the surface.

If anyone on staff noticed, they didn't act like it. Dr. Wos, jovial to the point of being nearly condescending, only showed up in the afternoon hours to check over his vitals and run a few tests. Hope listened with half an ear and even less of his attention. "Your heart and lungs are clear. And apart from a sprain in your ankle and a dislocated shoulder, your arms and legs sustained only minor injuries. If you don't mind me saying so, I'd say you got off lucky."

"That's nice," Hope had said, unable to keep the words locked on his tongue any longer. "Make sure you go down to the morgue and tell my parents that. I'm sure they're worried."

Dr. Wos had left in a hurry after that.

The nurse assigned to keep watch over Hope had started off nice enough. A petite blonde by the name of Alyssa, she'd made the rounds of the ward Hope was staying on with a practiced smile and an air of measured calm that he appreciated greatly. She didn't bother him with questions beyond any that pertained to her job, and she made no offer to turn on the television that hung above Hope's bed, its fat black screen reminding him too much of the ghosts that visited him in the night. The most Hope had let Alyssa do for him was fetch him a magazine so he could have something to do with his hands besides knot them in the wretched blanket, or tucked beneath the pillow, searching for a warmth that would not come.

On the third day of Hope's stay in the hospital, there had been one small incident between them. A question that would have been harmless in any other situation besides the one Hope was currently working so hard not to face.

"Isn't there anyone you want to call, Mr. Estheim? Friends, family... girlfriend, boyfriend?"

"No," Hope said, the word a horrible, heavy sound that fell in between them. It dragged down the edges of Alyssa's smile, and tugged at the little frayed scraps of his own heart. "There's no one."

Alyssa had left the room in silence, her lips pursed tight and her eyes narrowed with thought. She didn't notice the shadows she was walking through, didn't pay any attention to the bone pale ghosts with their eyes and mouths like oozing sores, all staring at the patient she'd just left.

_They're all I have left now. There's no one else who cares._

Except for Lightning. Wherever she was.

After that incident, Hope overheard Alyssa make some comment about needing to switch her hours due to personal troubles, thus leaving him with a temporary lapse of caretakers.

_Is that even legal? _he thought, eavesdropping from where he lay motionless on his bed when the subject first came up. He knew it was wrong to do, and never before had he really cared to listen in on what others might be saying, unless it was directly targeting him. But now it helped distract him from the weight in his heart and the bitter turn his life had made – and, at the very least, from his bed's appallingly uncomfortable accoutrements. The scratchy pillow and paper-thin sheet that served for a blanket both rest atop an unyielding mattress. _Even the Academy's graduate dorms are nicer than this._

Hope soon got his answer to the silent question, thus proving that some bad habits have a nice way of paying off eventually.

"That new nurse should look after him in the meantime," Dr. Wos said, speaking in the measured tones of a person long without sleep and far from its reach. "What did you say her name was? She transferred here the night Mr. Estheim was brought in."

"Jill, I think?" Alyssa supplied the answer in a terse tone whose edges followed Hope into his sleep, making him think of Lightning. Where was she? She said she'd be back...

"_I'll come back." She practically said it three times, like a promise. _And yet Hope had marked off the fourth day since their meeting without another trace of her to be seen. He didn't count the appearances she made in his dreams: Hope didn't think they counted as much besides feverish impulses, since his parents were alive and well in them, too.

He chose to overlook the wraiths that the shadows brought forth. The less attention he paid to those hallucinations, the better off he'd be.

But of course, that's not how life went. Not for him, not now. Not anymore. Such are the terms and conditions of a Guardian's life.

It happened later that night, when a nurse – neither Alyssa nor this Jill that had been mentioned – peered into Hope's room, using the door frame to support herself. Hope shifted his head just enough to watch her without having to strain the muscles in his neck, surprised that he could even move at all without any pain. Did Lightning do that? How _could _she have done it? The question would go without an answer until she returned.

And at the moment, Hope had more pressing things to think about. Like the nurse that was now rounding the corner, stumbling heavily across the threshold. Her skin was as bloodless and white as the ghosts in his waking dreams, her mouth open as wide and dark as them, too. A soft, gurgling moan was crawling out of the wound that had been slashed across her throat, and when she lifted a hand out – either to stop herself from falling or to make a pathetic grasp for Hope – he saw that there were deep bruises coating the tips of her fingers up to her wrists. They seemed to glisten in the light from the hallway, and the golden pale radiance of the streetlamps that bled in from the window on Hope's left.

_Bruises don't do that, _Hope thought, pushing himself up to his elbows as the woman stumbled closer. _People don't turn into monsters either, but bruises don't glow like they're made out of crystal._

Funny, the things person's mind notices when they're acting on pure adrenaline and panic.

He wanted to say it was the drugs. He wanted to say it was another dream, just a nightmare that had burst out of the seams of sleep and took root in the fringes of his consciousness, but soon the woman's hands were tugging at Hope's arm, their nails ice cold and sharp like glass. He watched them tear through the gauze wrapped around his wounded arm and did what came natural to him, acting out of instinct and anger. Hope shoved her hard, ignoring the way that awful wet sound turned into a soft shriek of pain as she collapsed to the floor, her eyes brimming with an accusation Hope could not understand, but recognized well.

_I survived. I survived, and it was a mistake. I should have chosen death. I shouldn't have come back. _But come back Hope had, and he would have to make that survival mean something, and leave the regrets for another time.

Hope marveled at how easy it was to climb down off the bed, at how there was barely any pain to the process. He supposed that would come later, when the tides of his regret flowed well and high over his head, drowning him thoroughly beneath their depths.

"I survived," he said out loud, because saying it out loud made the words sound more solid and true, the one fact Hope had left that didn't hurt to admit. "I survived, and it's time I make use of that."

As if waiting for these words to be spoken, a spark of life inside of Hope's heart became a cinder, and then a true flame. He wouldn't die here. Not today, not now. Power and life and heat flowed through him, eroding all the traces of the drugs and the sluggish weight of a miserable heart that lingered behind. In that moment, miraculous though such a moment was, Hope found his thoughts turning to Lightning, to the light he'd seen burning out of her skin as she placed her hands to his skin. _Is this her strength, or mine?_

"Lightning," Hope whispered, watching the way his newly bared hands turned into fists, crackling wild and alive with a power he never thought he'd ever have. "Where are you now?"

* * *

Thirteen blocks away from the hospital, Lightning was already on the move, running as fast as her tired body would let her. Nothing could keep her from answering either the awful, bone-deep pull of her partner's awakening, nor his need for help.

_I won't let him down,_ she vowed, clenching her teeth and sprinting down the dark block, her heart hammering with determined fury inside her chest. _Not this time. I promise I'll get it right, Hope._

In the Void Beyond, the Primarch smiled, watching this all unfold with dagger-keen interest.


	4. Chapter 4 - Dancing Mad

**Notes: **A quick update, since I don't think I'll be able to post on time tomorrow, due to an appointment. Enjoy my dark take on a "magical girl" transformation sequence for Hope~

* * *

**Chapter 4 – **Dancing Mad

Into the miserable little hospital room, there came a light, followed close behind by Lightning. Both forces of natures smashed through the window behind Hope, and he turned to watch as the younger woman rolled cleanly through the momentum that carried her a few feet up, but still by his side.

A quick recap of the basic laws of physics told Hope that there was no way a human could either jump _through_ a second floor window, nor jump _up _high enough to reach it in the first place. But he knew with a certainty that lay like lead inside his chest that his eyes did not lie to him, nor did he doubt that Lightning was truly there beside him, answering his silent call that alerted her to his need.

And that gave him a great deal of comfort, though they were still strangers. She was here. She came back, just like she said she would.

The same light that preceded her arrival now engulfed Lightning as she steadied her hands on the glass-laden floor and pushed herself up to her feet. It created a barrier whose edges trembled in a constant, uneasy pulse. Hope watched in stunned appreciation as the light – dark pink this time, so different from the pale golden hue that had moved off her fingertips to his damaged skin – moved over her arms, legs, and throat, transforming all it touched. The pencil-thin skirt she'd worn when barrel rolling into the room had now became metal-plated and pleated, connected to large, silver arches of armor that protected her narrow hips. It matched the patches of armor strapped to her arms, chest, and shoulders, and had molded itself to fit particular bodily details Hope want to think about. Not now. Not when there was a sore-oozing abomination still crawling its way to his side.

He did, however, have one pressing question. "How did the hell did you _do_ that?" Hope asked, eying the details of Lightning's transformation with a gaze determined to brand the image into his mind.

"We'll talk about that later!" Lightning cried, throwing out an arm as if to tear through the very air that separated her from the ghoulish nurse. Hope watched as the creature – he found it hard to keep considering it a human – shifted its weight and attention onto the newcomer in the room and began to lurch for her instead.

Before Hope could react to this change, an awful, eerie shriek drew his eyes to the doorway. More bone pale, shambling figures were crowding their way into the entrance, drawn to the room either by their fellow creature or the sounds of struggle. Had they been making that much noise? And why wasn't anyone else – anyone _normal _– coming to see what was wrong?

_What happened to them? _Hope wondered, feeling his strength and light and heat ebb with a startling, knee-buckling jolt at the thought that _everyone _in the hospital had undergone this ghastly transformation. _Is this what Lightning meant by 'anything strange' happening? _It had to be. It didn't get much stranger than this. He would have to wait until the threats were gone before he could ask her, though it pained him to have the answer elude his current grasp.

Lightning didn't seem to react to the new batch of enemies. She was keeping her focus pinned entirely upon the target in front of her. Her eyes burned with a calm cruelty suggesting years of practice that made Hope's heart catch in mid-beat.

_How long has she been fighting like this?_

One of the ghouls in the doorway, dressed in a white coat similar to the hospital's standard attire, arched back hard enough to break a normal human's spine, and let out a thunderous shriek. Hope flinched, pressing his trembling hands to his ears to help block the sound, but Lightning had no time to spare for the pain.

"Don't listen to it!" she hissed, either at herself or Hope, he couldn't be sure. Each word issued out through clenched teeth, jammed full of enough force that felt like a solid punch. "Take whatever's hurting you and turn it into something useful. Don't give in to your own weakness."

Lightning cracked her armored elbow against the first ghoul's face hard enough to break the skin and make the jaw go slack, dangling pitifully on the seams of skin. It gave her some space, allowing her to edge back a pace and move her other arm up to press the fingers against her chest. Hope could seen another light burning beneath the surface of the armor and the black, skin-tight fabric beneath, and with the way her fingers were bent and its connecting arm shaking with effort, Hope thought she seemed determined to tear her way down through bone and flesh.

He couldn't understand it, but he wouldn't question it. Not now, anyway. He would have to trust that her sudden display of masochism had a purpose besides self-destruction.

In the mean time, he'd make himself useful.

"Over here!" Hope yelled, darting forward to catch the first ghoul's attention, hoping to lure it over towards the mass of its new friends. He suspected Lightning could likely take care of herself, but the action was completed and the words spoken without much of a thought put into either one. Hope wasn't thinking about much of anything besides disjointed flashes and scraps of his first meeting with Lightning, and the words she had shared with him while keeping watch over his battered body.

"_... as long as we're together..."_

"_You're like me now..."_

"_A second chance at life, but it comes with a price."_

Hope bent his hands into fists. For the longest second his life had ever known, he felt that what had unlocked inside of his chest only moments before had now turned into a fire that made every vein a cinder. It boiled his blood to a scarlet vapor whose fumes inspired him to transform rage into strength.

"_Take whatever's hurting you and turn it into something useful." _The pain of having survived and thus leaving behind all that he loved could not touch him now, not like this, sealed inside his own hard, golden shell so similar to the light that had embraced Lightning. Hope watched as she backhanded the ghoul hard enough to shatter its jaw completely. _Let me be strong like that, _he thought as the bones and blood and teeth skittered in a foul puddle across the floor. _Let me be strong enough to match her._

"What are you doing? Get changed!" Lightning yelled at him, tossing both the words and a quick glance as the light in her chest began to crackle, loud and bitter and dark, like an electric current had taken over her veins.

"Yeah uh, _how_, exactly?" Hope fired back.

"_Focus_! You've got a target, and that target wants to fight. So think about what you need and _get it_!"

"Easy enough for you to say," Hope muttered, but the words fell on his ears alone. Lightning wasn't listening to him, and Hope could not blame her.

The energy bubbling out of Lightning's chest manifested itself into the hilt of a blade that forced its way out from the core of the light burning above her heart. She gave little reaction to the blade's presence besides a quiet grunt of pain that was silenced behind clenched teeth, before wrapping one hand around the hilt and giving the blade a fierce tug. A sword about three feet long emerged from the impromptu sheath that was her breast, the blade jagged along its every surface, as if sculpted not only to strike fear but wretched pain into all who stood before its reach. Electric currents to match the namesake of the woman wielding the blade moved along the length of the weapon, sliding back down to its hilt and to the gloved hand that held it casually, effortlessly, as if it were no more significant than a little stick. Power, true and fierce that made the hairs on the back of Hope's neck stand tall at attention, moved in nearly visible waves from where Lightning stood poised for the continuing fight. The force of it even made the ghoul pause in its tracks, though the mass in the doorway revealed no hint of hesitation or any sort of interest in what had just happened.

_Can they even understand what's going on? _Hope wondered, not exactly feeling pity for the fiends, but something dangerously close to its mark. _Do they know what's happening? _But these thoughts were dangerous waters whose depths could not be seen, and they would only promise a wretched, bottomless dread if Hope explored them further.

_Think about it later. _Worry _about it later. Right now, just try to focus on not getting killed. _He didn't know where to start, but his body seemed to be moving on instinct, acting on Lightning's pressed the side of his fist against his heart, and spared a few seconds to be amazed that through all this, his pulse could still maintain an almost laughably steady pace. He didn't think it had anything to do with adapting to the circumstances; he was probably still in denial at this sudden outbreak of madness.

Another thought kicked to life at this fact. _Make your survival mean something, here and now, and leave the regrets for another time._

What happened next seemed to take place at the end of a long, dark tunnel, whose only light existed to illuminate the series of events that, however much Hope could not deny were being done _by _him, did not feel _connected _to him. He watched as the hand held to his chest became engulfed in its own light, pale green and oddly tender, similar in sentiment to when Lightning had healed him, but did not stay that way for long. It quickly hardened into a bitter, furious spark that made him grin, though he couldn't understand why it should make him happy.

Lifting his hand above his head, Hope drew the light from where it was starting to burn, star-shaped and pointed, against his chest, and opened his fist one finger at a time, like a countdown in reverse. As if carved into and through the air by this gesture, the light split, forming a portal through which the curved, gold and black blade of a sickle began to emerge. The golden designs continued along the edge encasing the top part of the blade, forming what seemed to be a pair of monstrous teeth and wicked, curled horns that decorated a fiend most foul.

As menacing as this weapon seemed Hope had no other choice but to take it if he wanted to put a stop to the horde that was now mere feet away. Distantly aware that his hands were no longer bare, Hope watched as the path of this new light, his _own _light, and perhaps the source of all the strength he could feel taking hold of him now, buried down and back out of his skin, reenforcing his otherwise damaged body despite leaving it without any outward sign of protection. The hand closing around the handle of the scythe was as bare as it had been when he first reached out for the weapon, but Hope could see that there were strange, thin marks now growing and glowing from his fingertips down the back of his hand. It was as if his veins had suddenly become infused with neon lights, and saw fit to burn with pride at this change.

The glowing veins continued up his arm, widening out into a set of long, dark lines, like tattoos. From the edges of his vision, Hope could see that they stretched across his shoulders and tumbled down his back and across his chest, creating the impression of scaled wings plated with gold. He might not have Lightning's armor, those plates of brilliant silver lovingly crafted to her every contour, but Hope knew he wasn't without his own means of defense. He was staring at the proof written across his own flesh. His body had found a way to forge a sanctuary inside his very blood, and force it up to shine through his skin.

For a mad second, he thought of his mother. _"You can get as old as you want, but you'll always be my child."_

_Hope had never taken the time to appreciate those words, or the love that inspired them, when his mother had still been alive. But he wouldn't make that mistake twice. __Mom... I never meant to leave you behind, but I won't start off this new life full of regret. I can't do that. I promise._

Hope didn't feel the effort it took to prize the scythe loose from the portal that was crackling over his head, but he supposed it must have been an awfully arduous task to accomplish. He could hear a voice much like his own yelling with a rage born from pain, silencing the similar battle cries rising out of his partner's open mouth. _Let me have a strength to match hers, _he thought again, as if repetition could make the wish come true. And then he added on, speaking a desire that danced madly in the back of his mind, as if waiting for its time to shine: _I want her to rely on me. She doesn't have to fight alone anymore. Not again._

_Again_? he repeated. A prickle of déjà vu wormed its way inside of Hope's attention. _Have I... thought that before?_

A cold, cruel laugh started up at the thought, but Hope knew it wasn't coming from him.

_Then who_?

The scythe was now free and fully revealed, bearing another curved blade at its opposite edge. It was the very twin of the darker half, save for the blade being ivory white and decorated with a pristine divinity to make up for the monstrous half's lack.

For a wild second, Hope thought he could hear Lightning let out a little gasp, either at the sight of the scythe or something else. But the moment passed, and the noise was forgotten.

Hope charged over to the horde filling up the room on quick, airy steps, putting all the strength he could muster into swinging the scythe's darker edge first across their bellies, then adjusting his grip in the follow through to swipe the ivory blade against their already wounded necks. He told himself it wasn't murder if they were monsters. It was a simple process of elimination, nothing more dangerous than cutting down the obstacles in his path. A target, just as Lightning had said.

"That's it, Hope!" she called out, just as proud of Hope's attacks as she would be of her own. Lightning had become a flash of silver and whirling, wavy pink hair on the edge of his vision as she, too, fell into the rhythm of her own mad dance. "Cut them down and I'll clear out what's left! We gotta keep moving 'til we find their source."

"And that is...?" Hope asked, wincing as the white edge of the scythe grew blacker with every oozing stain.

"Probably an oblivion core," Lightning said, reeling from a slap she only just managed to dodge. "That's how they got in last time."

Hope couldn't help but snort. "Oh, right. Why didn't I think of that?" _The hell is an oblivion core? _He'd never even heard of it before.

Lightning chuckled at his response, driving her sword up into and through another ghoul as it made the mistake of crossing her path. She impaled it cleanly, calmly, and withdrew her blade with no more strain than moving a brush through her hair. "I told you I'd come back and explain everything, right?" she asked him. "And that's what I'm gonna do. It'll be more showing than telling by this point, though. So I don't wanna hear any complaints."

_How the hell can she carry on a conversation when we're fighting for our lives?_ "Is that what you were looking for the other day?" he asked, staggering back from a surprise blow to the corner of his left eye. It was a punch so hard that made him see darkness and stars.

"You're a sharp one," Lightning said, and Hope spared a few seconds to catch her smirk as it stretched across her pale lips, igniting a sudden fire in her eyes that kindled a similar blaze inside his own.

She didn't seem to like that. "Stay focused! Keep your eyes front." And to make good on this _showing _and not _telling _credo, Lightning darted forward and delivered an open-palm strike to the ghoul that had almost wrapped its withering fingers around Hope's own frozen hand. He thought, and then viciously denied ever thinking, that it looked just like Alyssa...

_These aren't people, _he told himself furiously, silently, chewing hard on his bottom lip and forcing his bruised eye to open wider. _They're just monsters, imitations – they aren't anything like people at all._

In that moment, there was no room in Hope's heart for grief. Even at the distance he now stood, observing all of his actions as if they were being performed by someone else's hand, he felt nothing but a savage, burning pleasure that grew with every attack he made. It didn't matter that he had no idea what he was fighting, or even why he had to fight at all. He was no longer weak and powerless, lying prone on that hospital bed, waiting for his body to heal and his mind to rupture under the weight of its grief. Hope reveled in this change, just as much as he dreaded its departure, for what would he be once this power and light left him?

A thought emerged from the darker depths of his mind, unimpressed with all that had taken place and not at all content to keep quiet about it. _The same as you were before you died, _Hope told himself. _A little boy pretending to be a man, so terrified of being weak one left behind._

Hope shook his head to banish this dreadful voice. _I can't be, _he reminded himself_. I won't. Not this time, _he vowed in silence, for some wishes are too fragile to give life out loud. He might break his word before the promise ever left his tongue, and _then _what would Hope be?

_A liar, _he thought, mimicking the shades that had haunted him throughout the days and nights of his newly orphaned life. _A liar, a coward, and a fool._

But as long as Lightning stayed beside him, he wouldn't have to suffer this alone.


	5. Chapter 5 - A Space Inbetween

**Notes: **Thank you so, so much to everyone who has messaged and left reviews on this! You're really helping me along with the motivation to keep this fic going. ^^

This chapter's almost _double _what the usual chapter length is, to make up for not updating on time. D:

* * *

**Chapter 5 **– A Space in Between

Once the fight was done, Lightning turned to gaze at Hope with her full attention. She didn't seem pleased.

Hope watched as her eyes went wide, creating an expression Hope never expected to see on a woman who had otherwise acted unbreakable, as if her nearest kin were iron. Fear moved across her face, darkening her eyes and making her brows knit over into a single, worried fold. The look lasted for only a moment, but the moment was more than enough to leave a mark on them both.

"Is that what you changed into?" Lightning finally asked, glaring at the sharp, cruel curves of the weapon he held in his hand after taking in the brands along his skin. Hope could feel his grip on the weapon slack just a little. It grazed the floor and the piles of enemies with an awkward _thud_. A muscle twitched in Lightning's jaw the longer she gazed at the weapon, as if there were something fundamentally disgusting about its very existence. Hope tried not to take offense to this. _I can't look _that _bad._

"Should I have run it by you first?" he asked. Hope didn't mean for the question to sound as petulant as it did, but the words had escaped before he could refine them. Her reaction to his appearance frustrated him. It clashed so horribly with the praise she'd only just given to him, and Hope wasn't sure how to make sense of the change. He could still hear her compliments ringing inside his head; they'd been his pillars of support... and now they all seemed to be crumbling into dust.

"That's not what I meant," Lightning shot back. Her eyes moved off of the weapon and onto his face, but they didn't stay for long. _Why can't she look at me? _Hope wondered, a lance of pain worming through from his heart down to the pit of his stomach, causing him to flinch. _What's wrong with me? _It never occurred to Hope to think there might be something wrong with _her._

Lightning stomped forward, creating a distance between the two of them as quickly as her legs could manage. She paused long enough to snap over her shoulder, "Follow me. And make it quick," but otherwise made no attempt to foster conversation.

Hope had no choice but the follow, yet he refused to do so silently. "Where are we going?" he asked, keeping just a half step behind her. It seemed a harmless enough question to ask. And he deserved to know, if he was going to be in any way useful in whatever problems that came next.

The pair of them continued down the hallway, bound in silence and to a common cause that both would rather not face but saw no way to avoid. Hope couldn't help but notice, as the silence continued, that the hospital seemed abandoned of both human or humanoid monstrosities. Papers thrown off of desks or torn out of files were scattered across the pristine tiles, and posters had been ripped off the walls, creating sad piles of colorful confetti. Every window they passed revealed only the dark, gloomy depths of Eden at night, with no stars to light the way and no signs of life to give Hope the comfort that at least somewhere in this city, life was continuing on as normal. _It's like we're the only ones left in the whole world... _He might enjoy that, if he were with someone that didn't treat him like a disease.

In the distance Hope thought he could hear the sound of a dial tone. It blared out in one long, awful mechanical note that carried on without end – and then he remembered where they were, and what that sound was more than likely to be.

Hope's hands clenched at his sides, and he dug his nails sharply into each palm, focusing on that pain instead. _Who else is hurt? _he wondered, as he pushed images of the monster that might have been Alyssa out of his mind. _Who else and how many? _What was the point of fighting if you couldn't do it to keep people safe? Lightning might know, but she seemed not at all interested in providing him with an answer – but then again, Hope hadn't asked.

With each doorway they passed and with every hallway explored, Hope found less reasons to believe there was anyone else in the hospital apart from Lightning and himself. Surely they would have heard someone else by now, either crying out for help or screaming in pain. But luckily there came no such sounds at all. All Hope could hear was the soft chimes Lightning's armor made with her every step, and the ragged pulse hammering away inside his chest.

Hope breathed somewhat easier after this realization. If horrible things had to happen – and they seemed to be a bitter fact of life, both the one Hope had left behind and this new one he was just beginning – then he would rather they not include those who had no way of keeping themselves safe.

Even the ghouls had cleared off, or perhaps gone into hiding. _Maybe they know what we did to the others..._ Is that why they fought, then? Not to protect, but to destroy?

_This might not be a problem if you had actually read the Terms of Service, _Hope chastised bitterly, in a voice that took on the cadences not only of his own voice, but the Primarch's, Lightning's... and his mother and father, too.

_I didn't know, I didn't think—_

_We know; we can tell, _the choir echoed back, shutting down Hope's silent attempts to justify his mistake.

When they reached a staircase marked STAFF ONLY, Hope decided he'd given Lightning enough time to disregard his question. He'd had enough of the silence, enough of his own mind abusing him. _The Primarch said she'd answer my questions... she's here to help me. _Still, Hope struggled to give Lightning the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she hadn't heard him the first time, or she was still too unsettled by his appearance to answer. She wasn't exactly the easiest person to read, and it didn't help that she kept her back to him for the most part since the fight had ended.

Hope tried again as she pulled open the door and pushed it open wide enough to allow him to pass behind her. "So what's an oblivion core?" he asked, his voice echoing in the dimly lit, abandoned stairwell. How pitiful it sounded, so small and frail. "Is it somewhere in the hospital?"

Silence was once again his only answer, interrupted briefly by the sounds of Lightning's armor clanging with every step. She stepped gracefully off the one landing and began to clear the next batch of stairs, her pace speeding up.

_She didn't even blink, didn't even bother to look at me. It's like I'm not even here._

For a wild, agonizing second, Hope was sure she was leaving him behind. His hand darted out fast, trying to make a grab for her arm or at least the cold armor encasing her hand – and then Hope saw it. The brand that had burned its way across skin. Black lines threaded with pale green ran up the back of his hand and under the sleeve of the hospital gown they'd strapped him into, after disposing of his bloody clothes. Hope had noticed these marks before, but he hadn't really been _seeing_ them until this moment. It made the next sequence of events make perfect sense: Lightning straying further from his grasp, unable to even _look _at him and what he'd become. His heart stuttered as if he'd missed a step walking down the stairs, so similar to the agony he felt when he looked up and saw the mangled remains of his parents.

_She's going to leave you behind, just like you left them._

"Lightning, wait!" Hope's fingers, stained both by blood and whatever power had claimed him for its own, grazed the bare part of Lightning's arm not covered in armor or the dark red fabric that made up her bodice and underskirt. The touch was for an instant, but it was enough. More than enough, it was everything.

At first, for a small moment, Hope felt a rush of warmth like blood rushing to leak out of a wound. The world compressed itself into that single act, eliminating everything else – the abandoned hospital, the fear that was gutting Hope of everything akin to confidence, his need for answers and reason to return to him... And then – nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Which is also what Hope saw. The world, and Lightning was gone, as if a light had been switched off.

* * *

Sometimes lives, like the world itself, can end with neither whimpers nor screams, but with silence. With silence we leave, and into silence we go.

That's what the rest is.

* * *

Hope opened his eyes, and looked at an unfamiliar ceiling. His first impression of the room, was that it was pure pristine and white, almost eerily so. _This can't be the hospital, can it?_ he thought, dragging a heavy hand down the front of his face.

Through the gaps of his fingers, Hope saw pale sunlight filtering in through long, glass doors that were decorated with nearly sheer curtains. They fluttered like the trains of ghosts in a warm breeze, which brought in the scent of lilies and mint, along with the hesitant chirp of nearby birds. The hospital had been neither so pleasant nor sparsely decorated. There was nothing else in the room apart from the wide, soft bed Hope was laying on – far softer than what the hospital had given him – and the glass doors to his left.

_Where am I? _He remembered the strange room in which he met the Primarch, but this couldn't be the same place. There was too much light, for one thing. And Hope didn't feel as bizarrely detached and weightless here as he had back then. _I'm still alive, aren't I? I have to be. I don't remember dying _again. That tends to stick with a person.

He raised himself up to his elbows, watching the crisp, white sheet slide off his bare chest into a little pile around his waist. He could move without any pain or discomfort, and the confusion he felt at being taken from one place only to wake up in another, without any memory of the time in between, inspired Hope to do the only thing he could do in that moment: put one foot in front of the other, and walk. Stepping off the bed was easy, it was figuring out where to go that proved the harder part.

The door to the room was simple, just as white and untouched as the rest, with a little golden knob that was cold inside his hand. He stepped into the hallway and glanced around. There was barely any light coming from either end of the corridor, and he squinted to make out the shapes of a whole series of doors stretching down from either end. They were closed to him, their stony silence giving no hint to any life inside.

Hope left the door to his room open so he could find his way back to the room if his exploration of the hallway proved useless. It wasn't exactly a thread winding through the labyrinth, helping the hero find his way out again, but it would get the job done all the same.

Once he reached the room next to his own, Hope raised a hand and knocked once, softly. "Lightning?" Hope's voice barely echoed into the dim, bare hallway. His hand settled on the knob, but he stopped himself from opening the door. "Are you there?"

Silence again. Hope sighed and turned away from the door, continuing on down the hall. A plush carpet sagged beneath his bare feet, muffling every step he made. He repeated the effort with every door he reached, knocking first and then calling out a question that seemed incapable of finding an answer to complete it. _This isn't working... I'm getting nowhere – hell I don't even _know _where I am._

When he reached the end of the hall and the frayed tether of his temper, Hope grit his teeth and simply shoved the door open. Impatience made him bold, and it was fast becoming desperation.

A picture of domestic bliss waited for Hope behind the door. It opened into a room much like the one he'd woken in, airy, light, and white, full of the scent of flowers and a bird song that was much more cheerful than the one he'd heard. A table was set up in the center of the room, complete with four cushioned chairs, ornate in style and as delicate as glass. Hope held his breath as he approached them, running his hands curiously across the design carved across the top. It looked like a single wing unfolded, each pinion etched into the wood with a detail that bordered on fanatic.

On the table was a silver tea tray and a delicate set, complete with saucers, cups, a tea pot, and even a little pitcher of milk. A crystal dish full of sugar sat waiting next to a little plate of cookies, baked into the shapes of stars and hearts. Despite the four chairs, the table was set for two, but Hope hadn't noticed anyone else in the room when he entered.

Hope pulled out the chair and took a seat, folding his hands together on the table. No sense avoiding a perfectly comfortable place to sit. He could wait far more happily sitting down, while on his feet.

A little voice broke through the bird song, coming from a place just beyond the glass doors. "We have company." A girl's voice, young and sad, as if there were tears brimming inside of every word just waiting to spill over.

"Let him wait," another voice replied, darker, deeper, and clearly masculine. "He's certainly used to being by himself. You've earned a chance to rest, Yeul."

"I can rest once I'm finished," the girl replied, ignoring both the last part of that statement and the tenderness with which it was spoken. "You already know that, Caius."

"But _he_ doesn't," another voice, also a man's but not the same as Caius, persisted. This voice was younger, the tone strained less to convince the girl to do as he asked, but to make get a little jab in at Hope's expense. "He never knows anything no matter how much he's told, so what's the point in rushing?"

"But he _can_ hear everything you're saying," Hope called out, staring out the glass doors. Through the sheer curtain, he could just make out the shapes of three figures standing a few feet beyond. They were little more than a blur of colors at that point – purple and yellow, pale gold and a dark, bruise-like black and blue – that soon became proper shapes the closer they moved to where Hope sat.

The girl entered the room first, stepping through the curtain with a light, quick trot. She was a tiny little thing, with a frame as delicate as a doll come to life. Her eyes were deep and as wretchedly sad as her voice, and she kept her gaze pinned to Hope as she continued to walk towards the table. It warmed him, that gaze, the way sunlight can bring life to the most meek and despairing flower. A little veil was covering her mouth, and it hung down to obscure the fragile stem of her neck, reminding Hope of the curtains that were now being shoved aside a second time to admit the man called Caius.

If Yeul was light and air, the sort of substance from which dreams and tenderness could be compared, Caius was clearly meant to be the brutal opposite. Tall and lean, with a face fixed into a bitter, mocking expression, he regarded Hope with a dark gaze that replaced his earlier surge of warmth with frozen, death-like dread. Hope tightened his hands convulsively as he glared back at Caius. There was an air of the Primarch to this man; the same smirk and ancient, awful eyes full of knowledge peered out with barely concealed disdain. But whereas the Primarch had been full of bitterness, Caius seemed somehow removed from that level of ire. _Resigned, _was the word Hope was looking for, though _jaded _could work just as well.

The curtain parted a third time to admit the other voice Hope had heard. A shorter man in the later teenage years appeared behind Caius, his blue eyes wide and full of valor and fury that Hope often saw in dramatic renditions of heroes, little boys playing at war without ever reckoning the cost. The younger man gave Hope a sarcastic little salute, and he turned briefly to shut the glass door.

The bird song was cut off, filling the room with an uncomfortable silence brought on by so many standing at odds with one another.

"Hello, Hope," Yeul said, walking to the chair that faced his. Caius reached out to pull the chair back from the table, and Yeul lowered herself onto the cushion without pausing to hesitate or thank him. It wasn't ungrateful, but rather a sign of acceptance. Yeul was simply used to this by now, and Caius was just as used to doing it. Their movements were mechanical enough to have been acted out in advance, but Hope couldn't understand why they'd practice something so silly as this. _How long have they been together? _Hope found it hard to imagine three people being so attuned to the other without years of practice and trust.

_Just look at Mom and my father, _he thought, landing on the closest example he had without realizing just how badly it would sting.

Yeul noticed Hope's wince. "Are you all right?" she asked, tilting her head.

"I'm fine," he lied. Something about her eyes seemed to pass through Hope's skin, looking down at what hurt and how badly that hurt resounded. He couldn't look at her, not with her eyes suddenly turning so keen and _aware_, and Hope glanced down at his hands. _At least the brands are gone, _he thought.

When he looked up again, Hope noticed that Caius had raised an eyebrow just slightly, considering Hope in silence. The younger man, standing on Yeul's left, spoke the doubts out loud.

"We don't have much time to waste here," he said. "So just sit back and listen."

"We have as much time as Yeul decides," Caius argued. "Though it would be in your best interest to just listen, Mr. Estheim."

Hope moved his eyes slowly across the trio. They were certainly the strangest thing he'd seen yet, and that was including oozing ghouls and magical rays of light that opened up to reveal weapons. "Are you that associate the Primarch mentioned?" he asked, not really addressing any one of the three in particular with that question. But his eyes landed on Yeul in the end, because he figured if anyone was likely to answer him without added on another sarcastic jab, it'd be her.

This was a mistake. Caius' eyebrow rose even higher, though it was hard to tell if he disapproved of the question or was merely surprised by it. Yeul frowned, the expression darkening her soft face just enough to make Hope regret having asked in the first place. The younger man scowled and folded his arms across his chest, and the motion drew Hope's eyes to him again. Hope noticed the cords of black threads winding around his wrists and along the back of his hands, as if it were holding his skin in tact.

"Watch your mouth, Hope," he muttered. "She's better than that wrinkled old bastard – and _we're _so much worse."

"I am watching it," Hope said, ignoring the threat as he resisted the urge to stick is tongue out just then and match the younger man's bizarrely out of place temper. _What's got him so angry?_ "I'm watching it ask a question that has nothing to do with you."

Caius let out a laugh that made Hope's stomach churn. "He makes a fair point, Noel," he said.

"Caius, please." Yeul's plea, spoken in a tone just a few notches above a whisper, was enough to silence the older man. She turned to glance at Noel, who was now shifting his glare off of Hope onto Caius, but he couldn't resist Yeul's attention for long. She offered him a sad, small smile and said, "Let me talk to him. Remember? That's how it's supposed to go."

Noel nodded once, tersely, and continued to glare at Hope as Yeul shifted in the chair. She reached for the teapot and poured herself a cup before glancing up at Caius who, with the smallest of sighs, as if such labor was beneath him, stepped forward to pick up Hope's own.

"Sugar?" he grumbled, looking at Hope as if only pain would accompany an answer in the assent.

"No,"Hope said, another lie. Noel could glare at him all he wanted, but a single look from Caius was enough to make Hope want to say and do anything to keep both the man and the temper at bay. _What does Yeul see in these clowns?_

Hope accepted the cup, now full to the brim with dark, amber tea, without a word of thanks. He supposed Caius was used to such treatment.

Yeul took a few dainty sips of the tea and smiled to herself, enjoying the flavor and the aroma. Hope couldn't help but smile at the sight – it was the first he'd seen her look anything but mournful since she entered the room.

Noel began to tap his fingers in an impatient rhythm against the sides of his arms. Caius stood motionless, his eyes fixed onto Hope. When Yeul spoke, Hope had never been more grateful for a distraction.

"The first thing you should know is that you're safe here. We're sorry that we didn't arrive sooner, and it would have been less... traumatizing for you if we'd carried you over in your sleep. But we didn't expect to have to wait so long for certain conditions to be met."

"Certain conditions?" Hope echoed, trying to remember the scene that had preceded his awakening in this eerily peaceful place. "All I did was touch Lightning's arm, and... Oh."

Yeul very politely averted her eyes from how red Hope's face became.

"Why should that matter?" he asked, fumbling to get the words out and to ignore Noel's nasty laugh. "I mean – what's it got to do with... whatever it is that you did? And it'd be nice if you could explain both of those things. I'm not happy being left in the dark all the time."

"There are threads and there are webs, and then there's _you_," Yeul said, placing her now empty teacup down onto its saucer. Caius refilled it in silence. "The two of you, a pair knotted and tangled across so many lines and lives, but with never-changing faces and fates."

"Right. Okay."

"Don't interrupt," Noel said.

Caius folded his arms over his chest and glanced sideways at Noel. "Steady yourself."

Yeul looked down at her hands folded into small fists on her lap. "All I do... all I _can _do, is find where the points intersect and attach myself to these moments. Consider this an interlude to the contact you two made, a space in between the act and the touch."

Hope didn't know how that could make sense, but he figured silence would be the best option.

"A terrible choice lies ahead of you... similar to the one that lays behind you now. That's what life amounts to in the end, not just for humans and Guardians but also those of us... in between," Yeul muttered this last part, glancing sideways at both Caius and Noel as she did so. "A life of endless choices, but there's always only the one answer in the end."

_She's doing an awful lot of talking, and very little explaining._

Yeul's eyes darted up and froze Hope's thoughts in place. He bristled under the suddenly keen, dagger sharp attention she was giving to him. _Lightning can look just like that sometimes. _For a second, he missed his strange companion, and wanted nothing more than to ask where she was. "You're a Guardian of Chaos now, Hope," Yeul said, speaking with a voice that seemed to rise from all the depths that stare, from the bruised darkness write across Caius' face, and all the untamed fury that was etched into Noel's every fiber. "Your life belongs to shadow and void and shade, and every step you take from here after will lead you further to that fact. Even when you think to run away."

Hope remembered something the Primarch had said, when he got Hope to sign the _Conditions _form: _"...you hereby agree to accept the limitations, freedoms, consequences, risks, and potentially traumatizing after-effects of the procedure, and by signing below waive your rights to lodge any cosmic complaints against the Primarch, up to and including counter measures, quests for vengeance..."_

"That doesn't mean I can't help people," he reasoned, speaking both to himself and to the depths inside of Yeul's stare, to the knowledge and pain reigning there. "A Guardian of Chaos doesn't... it doesn't _have _to be a bad thing. Does it?"

Yeul folded her hands on the table and lowered her eyes, considering the question. "There is always a choice to be made," she said at last, "and a price to be paid."

Hope's stomach clenched, seizing him with a wave of nausea that was enough to tighten his throat.

Caius noticed this and placed a hand on Yeul's shoulder. "Yeul..." he murmured, catching her eyes and nodding once to Hope. "Forgive me but... you must hurry. He's fading back."

Yeul reached up to give Caius' hand a gentle squeeze, and there was so much love and trust in that simple grasp that Hope felt ashamed to have looked at it. It seemed an even uglier thing to envy it. _They're partners, _he decided, watching as Caius stepped back to give Yeul space, and Yeul sat up straighter, with a confidence she didn't previously show. _Whatever kind of people they might be individually, when they come together they're stronger, better... _He supposed that would have to include Noel, too.

"We have just one question for you, Hope," Yeul began, and Hope noticed the use of the plural. _Does she mean all three of them? Or is this some kind of royal dialect? _There hadn't been royalty in Eden for centuries – a Patron ruled the city now, but all his actions were usually endorsed or vetoed by a committee known as the Conseil. And though Hope hadn't paid much attention to the Patron's speeches before, he was certain that Lord Villiers didn't talk like this.

"I'm listening," Hope said, taking another sip of the tea. It really was quite good, yet a little bitter. He should have asked for the sugar, Caius' ego be damned.

"What would you be willing to give up at the cost of saving the world?" Yeul asked.

Hope blinked and lowered the teacup down to its saucer with a long, slow motion. "Is this some kind of test?" he asked, ignoring Noel's derisive snort.

For an instant, Caius' gaze lowered to the floor. Hope noticed this and said nothing.

Yeul shook her head. "Just a hypothetical question," she reassured him.

"Well then I guess that would depend... on whether or not the world could really be saved, and what I'd have to give up to do it." Hope stared at the tea, at the little collection of bubbles drifting towards the center. He saw his parents in the cup, both their broken bodies and the shades that haunted him. He saw Lightning for just a second, but he shook his head, casting her aside. _Don't think about her now. _"But I'd really rather not give up anything. It can't be much of a victory if you have to lose something that matters."

Yeul's eyes widened at this statement, and even Noel was stunned into silence. It was Caius who spoke.

"There can be no victory without blood, little Guardian," he said.

"It's been a long time since someone called me little," Hope said, picking up the teacup. He thought about flinging it in Caius' face, but thought it'd be an awful waste of tea, and a sure way to break what was otherwise a very nice piece of china. _Caius would probably just knock it aside, anyway, _Hope thought. He had the sort of face that seemed accustomed to having people throw things at it in a fit of rage. _It's the smirk._

"You sound like Noel," Caius said, chuckling. "I meant in _ability, _not in size."

"And what's _that _supposed to mean?" Noel demanded, turning to glare at Caius.

Yeul let out a weary sigh. "Stop it, the both of you."

"You're far too easy to rile up," Caius said, keeping his eyes on Noel for a beat longer than he needed, before looking back to Hope. "You should consider keeping a cooler head on your shoulders, if you want to be useful to her."

"Who?" both Hope and Noel demanded.

Hope was just a beat quicker. "You mean Lightning?" he asked.

Yeul nodded once. Strange, the way all three of them could work together to respond and react as a single entity. "The Maid of Eden, trapped in a web of cycles. Free her, help her, heed her – but above all, _believe in her._"

Hope hadn't been expecting this at all. "I... I want to," he said, speaking from the one part of his heart that could stand to be bared before perfect strangers. "I'm trying, but... she's not making it easy."

Yeul smiled kindly at him, regarding him with a tenderness that made Hope's entire heart ache. "Continue to try, and see how fast the attempt becomes the act."

Wracked by another wave of nausea, Hope groaned as he closed his eyes. The world around him was tilting and shifting, like a spiral that widened out to drag away every bone and bit of blood and muscle that held him together. He could hear Yeul and Noel talking, calling out to him, but it was Caius' voice that came through in the end.

"Farewell, little Guardian. Remember me, for we shall meet again."

* * *

"Hope? _Hope_! Answer me, Hope!"

"No... Don't want to..."

Somewhere above him, a woman sighed. "That'll have to do, I guess," she muttered.

When Hope opened his eyes again, he was looking up at Lightning's face. She had one hand cradling the back of his head and another pressed to his cheek, tapping it softly. She had drawn him into her lap, and seemed torn between shoving him off and giving him a few more moments to relax before breaking the contact.

"Where'd you go off to?" she asked.

"Some in between place," Hope muttered, his words slurring over into a wet mumble. "There was tea. And a purple guy. And some angry little kid."

"Morphine's a hell of a drug," Lightning sighed, shaking her head. Clearly she didn't believe him. "I shouldn't have pushed you so hard – I should've taken care of the enemy myself, and kept you safe."

"I didn't mind fighting," Hope said, his words breaking apart to form a more coherent sentence. "Really, I didn't."

Lightning tapped his forehead in a little flick that made him want to laugh. But he didn't quite have the energy for it yet, so he tried to smile. "Yeah, but _your mind_ isn't exactly firing on all cylinders now. I should've... should've realized that," she said, correcting herself.

Hope thought back to what Yeul had said. _"The two of you, a pair knotted and tangled across so many lines and lives, but with never-changing faces and fates."_ What did that mean? _Have we done this before - does she know something I don't? _That was assuming, of course, that his vision of the white room and the strange trio had actually happened.

Had it been only a dream? Another vision born of drugs? The bird song still rang in Hope's ears, and he could taste the bitter tea on the tip of his tongue. _Hard to imagine any dream could be so real. _But he'd thought the same about the shades of his parents, coming back to torment him in between Dr. Wos and Alyssa's bedside chats.

"Still... don't scare me like that," Lightning said, all ice and stone once again, but Hope saw the flash of relief in her eyes as she helped him sit up straight.

Without thinking of why he did it, only that it simply must be done, Hope reached up to run his fingers across her cheek, catching a traitor tear as it slipped out from the edge of her eye. "Same goes for you, all right?"

Lightning stared at Hope with a look of fear once more – but it was a fear far different than the one that had taken in his brands and the brutality of the weapon he held. This fear was of another breed entirely, born from awe and surprise... and something like hope itself. "What're you talking about?" she asked, shaking her head and pushing herself back from Hope, until she was on her feet again. Detached, distanced – but still there. She didn't take another step away.

Hope worked hard to push himself to his feet, surprised at how he had to tilt his head down to look at her. She wasn't short by any means, but he hadn't expected to have this one slight advantage over her. "Earlier, before I... passed out," he amended, not knowing if that's what happened in truth, "it looked like you were gonna leave me behind. You were ignoring me, you couldn't even bring yourself to _look _at me. And... whatever problems you have with how I look isn't something I can change, I know that. But aren't we supposed to be partners?"

Lightning looked down at the ground and said nothing.

Hope continued. "The Primarch said that an associate would explain everything to me." He refined the statement at the last second, remembering the way the trio had reacted to its more pure, truthful form. Hope saw no need to repeat that experience, not when Lightning had already let her disgust for the comparison between herself and the old man be known. "And I know we've kind of got a lot on our plate right now, but all I ask is that you _help me."_

"There's no time for that," Lightning grumbled, shaking her head.

"We can make the time," Hope said, thinking about Noel's own stubborn response. It made more sense to him now, watching Lightning's reaction to the words. "We can multitask, can't we?"

"... What's this got to do with scaring you?" she mumbled, avoiding the question with one of her own.

"I don't like being left in the dark," Hope said. It was really as simple as that, and he spoke the truth as calmly as he could.

He wondered why that made Lightning's eyes fill with tears again.

Yeul's voice whispered to him from the memory of the vision. It couldn't be a dream, he decided. It had to have been a vision of a space in between moments, an interstice of reality, like ether._"The Maid of Eden, trapped in a web of cycles. Free her, help her, heed her – but above all, _believe in her._"_

Hope offered Lightning a smile. "We might be strangers, so this probably doesn't mean much, but... I believe in you, Light. So try to have some faith in me too."

Lightning took a long breath in... and shook her head. "No," she said, her voice breaking on the word, taking Hope's heart along with it.

"No?" he echoed.

"No... we're not strangers. You said it yourself, Hope. We're _partners. _I know I haven't been the best, but... I'm trying. It's not something that comes easy for me."

"Me either," Hope said, and he meant it.

"You met me at a very awkward time in my life. There's a lot... there's stuff I'm not ready to tell you. Stuff I don't think I even want to tell you, but probably have to, in the end." Lightning sighed, her shoulders dropping. She closed her eyes. "I don't know if I can handle both that _and _helping you out at the same time. Something's bound to slip through the cracks," she continued, speaking the words in a rush, as if it embarrassed her to admit every syllable.

"At least you're trying," Hope said. "And I'll be here to help you out until you get it right. That's what partners are for."

"Thanks," she said, chuckling as she opened her eyes and met Hope's gaze. "Just as long as you know what you're getting into."

"I think I have an idea." Hope smiled, though he didn't, not really. _She's not cold at all. I was wrong. She's a Guardian just like me, focused on her goal and fighting with everything she's got to accomplish it. _Maybe fighting wasn't about having something to protect or destroy at all, just something to win, something to reach for, however distant it might be.

His heart gave a little jolt as he watched Lightning return his smile. It was a bashful expression, accompanied by a faint pink flush in her cheeks that matched her hair, and made Hope lose all hold on his breath.

"Stop being so sweet," she grumbled. But she held out her hand for Hope to take, squeezing it with all the strength she possessed. He gave back as good as he got, and hoped it was enough to help.


	6. Chapter 6 - An Honest Lie

******Chapter 6 **– An Honest Lie, Like the Pride Before the Fall

Once they'd each taken a step back to gather their bearings, there was just one thing troubling Hope, out of the heaps of other bizarre things he could have chosen. He glanced Lightning up and down, and frowned. "Where'd your sword go?" he asked.

"I pocketed it," she said, shrugging.

"You've got pockets on that thing?" Hope eyed her armor curiously, unable to see how pockets could have fit into the design – it was rather skin-tight, with little space for even a small _knife_ fit comfortably in the folds. Hard to imagine a sword nearly three feet long finding a place to keep itself tucked out of sight.

"No, I meant... Never mind. Here, watch." Lightning held up a hand and bent her fingers, as if she were holding an invisible doorknob suspended in mid-air. She gave her hand a little twist, as if to open the air itself – which is exactly what she did. Pale pink light opened up in front of her hand, and with a crook of her finger, the hilt of the blade appeared before Hope's eyes.

"See?" Lightning asked, glancing up at Hope to make sure he was watching.

"How'd you do that?" Hope held up his hand, eying the fading brands that ran the length of his fingers up and over his wrist. Some of the blackness had disappeared, but there was still a neon green current pulsing evenly under his skin. "Show me."

"I just did."

"But there has to be more to it than holding out your hand and twisting," Hope argued. "Is it some kind of spell?"

"Not really," Lightning said, chewing on the edge of her lip as she thought. "I've always seen it as basic wish-fulfillment, only I'm the one making it come true."

Hope lowered his hand and waited for her to continue, keeping his eyes on her every gesture for some hint as to what to do next.

"Think about what you want, and focus hard enough to make it happen," Lightning said, putting her hand up again to repeat the demonstration. "That's all there is to it. Answer your own prayer for help, and don't doubt that you can."

Hope tried again, repeating her words carefully under his breath. A little tear opened up just out of the reach of his fingers, revealing a pale emerald slit, just like the one that had appeared when his weapon first did. "I did it," he marveled, unable to hide his grin.

Lightning made a gesture as if to grip Hope's shoulder, but stopped herself at the last second. "Careful," she said. "You don't want to wear yourself out."

"I feel fine," Hope said, reaching out to tug at the double-bladed scythe as it edged itself free of the little pocket in the air. "I'm not helpless, you know."

"I didn't say you were," she argued, watching as Hope began to feed the scythe back into the pocket. "And you should probably keep yours out, until you get the hang of pocketing it."

"What about you?"

"I've got other tricks up my sleeve," she said, and began to lead the way down the steps. "There's more to the job than swinging around weapons and hacking away whatever's in front of you."

"Nice of you to tell me about it."

Lightning peered over her shoulder at Hope and scowled. "Sarcasm?"

"Only a little. But I didn't mean it." Hope didn't know why he was defending himself, though to her credit Lightning didn't seem all that bothered by his snark.___Noel would've been fuming if he were here – if he's even real__, _Hope quickly amended. ___Where'd I even come up with those three? I've never seen people like them before._Hope's post-graduate studies at the Academy kept him on a rather tight schedule, eliminating all chances he had to laze around watching television or partake in any leisurely reading. He could have gotten away with it during his undergraduate years, if he weren't cut from a stubbornly studious cloth. There were worse character traits to have, and Hope didn't regret that this was his defining one - or had been, until the accident came.

Hope kept his eyes on Lightning's back as they continued their descent further into the hospital's floors. They passed the door leading to the ground floor without a pause, but when the basement came into view Lightning drew up short.

"Okay, look. There's something I have to ask, and I'd rather you not get bent out of shape about it." Lightning said, once Hope joined her at the last few steps on the staircase. She sized him up with a swift, piercing stare. Her sudden shift felt like an intentional destruction of the tenderness she'd just shown.

Hope tried not to squirm under the weight of her gaze, wondering how she could manage to move so seamlessly from one mode to the next. ___Doesn't she wear herself out?_

"How's your head feeling?" she asked. "You... hit it pretty hard on the way down."

"Did I?" Hope moved his fingers over the back of his head, feeling for a wound or a bruise. He winced at a sore spot, lower on his scalp, towards the top stem of his neck. "Well, it's not bleeding. And to be honest, a lot of me feels sore right now – but that's not out of the ordinary, is it?"

"Are you sure?" Lightning continued, lowering her voice and her chin as her eyes lingered on his own.

Hope lowered his hand, and his attempt at a smile slipped away. He could sense what lay beneath the surface of the question. He'd heard it before, mostly from teachers over the years, who watched as the most studious and reliable boy in the class withdrew further into his silence the more he bore bruises and welts. He'd heard it before from his mother, who would show up at the tail end of every encounter and ask a similar question. Hope tried not to picture her face and failed.

___She always tried to smile and pretend like nothing was wrong._But Hope knew better than to believe her. Her smile was never true, always forced, and her eyes were always dark, the gaze detached and without a single tear to cloud it.

"_He's had a rough day, sweetie. You know your father loves you just as much as I do. You understand, don't you?"_

They weren't asking him out of concern – they were asking him to lie. An honest lie, meant for an honest reason: to make someone else happy.

How bad could such a sin be, if it was done for the sake of someone else?

"It's fine," Hope said, but the answer came too quickly to be believed. "At least, I think it's fine," he amended. His head didn't hurt, not in any significant way that could stop him from carrying on. There was a heavy sort of pressure just over his eyes, like a band of rope tied around his forehead, pulling tight on the skin and cutting off the circulation to his brain. But Hope imagined that was an unavoidable consequence of having been in a wreck only a few days prior.

___Barely a week ago__, _he corrected, astonished that his whole life could have been uprooted in such a short length of time.

But Lightning persisted. "You don't hear any loud ringing noises? No dark wavy spots in front of your eyes?" She hesitated. "How about your thoughts? Are they... clear? Normal?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, Hope, I'm not a doctor," she spat back.

"Define normal first."

"Do they sound like you," she said, and Hope would have laughed at the absurdity of the remark if Lightning didn't sound and look completely serious.

___She doesn't have to pretend to care,_he thought. ___I wish she wouldn't. We might be partners, but it's clearly out of convenience and not compassion._Never mind that this thought flew in the face of what Yeul had told him about believing in her; at this moment here and now, torn between the memory of all the lies he had to tell to keep his mother happy, and the echo of her hollow stares shining out of Lightning's eyes, Hope found himself doubting what had earlier felt so plausible and true.

___Hallucinations can do that to a person,_he reasoned. ___Just look at the ghosts that kept haunting you for days._He wondered where they'd gone, if they would be back, too. Was all this, the visions of Yeul and her watchers, the ghosts of his parents, another consequence of the Terms and Conditions the Primarch had him sign? Some kind of forewarning would've been nice.

"Hope? Talk to me."

Drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of Lightning's voice, Hope shook his head slowly back and forth. "You don't have to worry about me, Light. I'm fine, honestly. It all sounds like me up here," he added, tapping the side of his head.

"So chances are you won't pass out on me again."

"I hope not," he said, forcing a laugh. "Don't worry, I won't keep letting you down. It's not a habit I want to get into. I promise I won't – I mean, at least... I'll _try _not to scare you, Light." Hope let the nickname slip once more on pure accident, his words stumbling out in a mess of uncertainty. "Is it okay if I call you that?" he asked. "I could go back to Lightning if you prefer."

Lightning chuckled and gave Hope another little flick with her fingers, this time on the shoulder. Her armored touch was cool against Hope's skin, which was still kindling fire in every vein. "Light's fine. It doesn't bother me. And... I'm asking you all this because I want to be sure you'll remember what I say next."

___Sure you aren't worried I'm going insane?_"What about everything you said before?" Hope asked, mirroring her little smile. His didn't fade as quickly as hers.

Lightning had a habit of ducking her head and glancing off to the side in an attempt to hide her tendency to blush. ___At least I'm not the only one fumbling awkwardly here__, _Hope thought.

"That stuff?" she said. "You can, ah... Well I guess you can hold onto it, too. If you think it's important enough." Lightning mumbled the words, glancing down at her feet and then at the little distance that remained between them and the basement door. Hope could see its pale, smooth surface glimmering faintly in the emergency lights that speared through the darkness. ___STAFF ONLY_was written on the front of the door again, followed by a smaller, equally commanding: ___NO PATIENTS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT._

"But we really need to focus right now, Hope," Lightning said. "We've got a core to find and then we have to get you back, so you can rest."

"You're sending me back to my room?" he asked, really laughing this time. "After that ugly mess we left behind?"

"I didn't mean you'd be getting _rest ____here_," Lightning corrected, going oddly pink again. "I've got a place you can stay – for a little while. If you want."

Hope tried to imagine the last time he'd stayed at a woman's place – not too long ago, but nearly reaching half a year's time. ___Right at the start of the spring semester, but it was definitely under more normal circumstances than resting up from a monster fight._"It'd be nice, I guess," he said, nodding once as he shifted his weight onto his other leg, suddenly very interested in that sign on the door. "I wouldn't stay long, though. I mean... I probably have to get back to my parents' house and... sort things out there."

Lightning's eyes bore all the weight of sympathy in them as she watched Hope's expression change. "I can help you with that, too. I've been there before." There was a night in her tone as dark and wretched as the shadows Hope had seen lurking outside of the hospital windows. Thoughts clad in a shroud of mourning prowled in the depths of her eyes as she lowered them for a moment, but the moment could have lasted for an eternity to her. Time had a funny way of behaving to a person lost inside themselves.

___Who did you lose?_Hope wanted to ask, but the words didn't leave the muddy depths of his thoughts. He wondered if she ever felt grateful to be rid of them, as he did sometimes, in between the haze of drugs and the weight of guilt that sat crouched on his chest, bent on crushing his heart into a miserable black pulp. At least it'd match what lay inside. "Thanks, Light," he said.

"Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for."

They began to walk down the rest of the stairs, every step sending little bursts of manageable pain through Hope's legs and back. ___The consequence of passing out on an uneven surface, I guess._He'd deal with the discomfort; it was nothing compared to those moments after the accident.

___Don't you start thinking about that now,_he demanded of himself_. ____Take all that pain and all that hurt and turn it into something useful.__ Light had told him to do it once before, when they were fighting, and he didn't see why it wouldn't work for this problem, too._

"So... what are oblivion cores again?" Hope asked, holding the door open once Lightning pulled on its handle.

"Right. That's the next thing I was gonna tell you," she said. "I meant to, but..."

"All hell broke loose, and you got distracted. It's understandable," Hope assured her. He paused, letting the door swing shut behind him as they entered the basement. "Is that... I mean, does that happen a lot?"

"Which part?" Lightning asked.

"All of it. The whole mess. Jumping up two flights to crash through a window, glowing like your own little personal halogen lamp, fighting messed up oozing zombie people. Everything."

Lightning put one hand on her hip and shifted her weight as she turned her head slowly from side to side, surveying what little could be seen of the basement. It was a series of rooms connected by wide, dark hallways. Lockers were lined up against either side of the walls in the hall, and there was a large, iron gate blocking off the corridor to their left.

"Only when oblivion cores show up," she said, walking towards a small alcove that resembled a security booth. She took a quick peek inside and nodded, satisfied to see it was clear before she began digging through the scattered pages and overturned cabinets, looking for something useful. "There's one nearby. Can't you feel it?"

"No," Hope said, just as a chill crawled down the notches of his spine. "Well, I _do ____now_, now that you brought it up."

"You'll get used to it," Lightning said breezily. "You'll start to sense all sorts of things now that you're... you know. Different."

Hope watched her from the doorway of the security booth, leaning his shoulder against the frame. "Where do these cores even come from?" he asked.

"Haven't found that out yet," she sighed, moving her hair over her shoulder as she knelt down next to desk and began to search beneath it. "But if I could take a guess, I'd say they're sent by whoever is in charge of all the strange shit that's been happening lately."

"I still don't know what you mean by that," Hope said.

"Most people don't – but it's not always their fault. The Patron or at the very least his lackeys have their hands full keeping a tight muzzle on the press, making sure most of the incidents get swept under the rug so no one stirs up trouble." Lightning's tone darkened with every word until she was ready to spit venom. "It's part of their stupid motto. ___The Lord of Eden shall always guard his flock._"

"But that's ridiculous. Shouldn't they want to keep people informed, so we can be safe?"

"Not if he thought he could handle it all by himself," Lightning grumbled, pushing herself up to her feet and holding up a little plastic white card. Hope noticed the difference in her speech right away. ___Bad blood, or awkward history?_

"Hopefully this'll open that gate out there," she said, showing him the card.

Hope stepped aside to let her pass. "Couldn't hurt to try," he said, keeping stride with her. "Where's the core now – can you tell? I can't really feel it the same way you can."

Lightning pointed to the hallway behind the iron bars. "Down there's my best guess. I tried to sneak down here the other day when I came to visit you – didn't work out too well, unfortunately."

"But isn't it better you don't have to go at it alone? I'm here to help now," Hope pointed out. ___That has to mean something, right?_

His eager eyes and matching tone earned him a little nod and a quick smile. "Yeah, and it'll be good for you to get some first-hand experience, too." Lightning said. "There's a storage unit at the other end of the hall where they keep supplies and spare machines – expensive stuff, which is why they've got it all locked up. It's also right across from the morgue."

The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop by several degrees at the mention of the room. ___My parents are probably still there,_Hope thought, growing even more cold at the thought. He couldn't remember if Dr. Wos or Alyssa had made any mention of transferring his parents to a funeral parlor, the few times they'd come by his room to talk to him. Those chats had all faded into the background hiss and bitter snarls of his parents, returning to torment him. ___And I would've been locked up on a slab right next to them, if I hadn't signed that contract..__. _Hope didn't have any regrets, but he didn't feel exactly happy with himself, either.

"I'm guessing the core won't be hanging out with some spare MRI machines," Hope mumbled.

Lightning smiled at him once more with a little flash of sympathy. "You're a fast learner," she said.

_Too bad it's never about anything good._

Lightning swiped the card through the console set up in front of the iron gate, and the red light on the top of the display flickered once, then blinked green. The gate swung upon to admit them, and they passed through in silence, walking side by side as they moved further down the hall. Hope and Lightning's strides fell into a matching rhythm as they followed the hall's winding thread further into the darkness.

"It's a little quiet, isn't it?" Hope asked, glancing around. The walls were bare and the floor was free from any debris, but there lurked a strange, cloying heaviness in the air, as if they were walking further into an invisible web that drew the oxygen from the room in small, disastrous gasps.

Lightning nodded, and Hope could see her jaw clench once as her teeth ground down together, the molars pressing tight. "Probably because we're getting close now. It's like a trap waiting to spring."

"A trap set by the core?"

"Maybe. They're not exactly defenseless."

"You're talking about them as if they have minds of their own," Hope said. "So what _are _they?" Hope's hand tightened convulsively around the grip of his scythe, taking comfort at the weight and shape of it inside his grasp. The cold metal comforted his blistering skin, clashing with the fire that was making his veins burn, and the brands rise up under his skin once again.

Lightning saw all this, and pressed her lips into a tight line. "They're nasty pains in the neck that enter through weak points in the world, like bacteria swarming in a body," she said, and Hope noticed the way her eyes narrowed as the marks on his hands and arms grew darker, as if she were making comparisons between what she saw and what she said. "Cores exist to contaminate everything within a certain radius and fill it with the opposite. Dark instead of light, despair instead of hope. They rip out order and replace it with pure chaos."

___Guardian of Chaos__, _Yeul's voice whispered in Hope's mind. He shook his head, casting off the thought.

Lightning didn't notice this. "Sometimes I can pinpoint when a core's going to burst open and stop it before that happens, but it's not always easy to do alone. Especially if it's in a building packed with people."

"Maybe next time it'll turn up in a cemetery," Hope snorted.

"That's even worse," Lightning said. "Some of those people have been gone for a long time, Hope. They're not meant to be brought back. Not like that."

___What about us?_Hope didn't have the courage to ask the question out loud. "How long have you been fighting, Light?" he asked, because it was a safer alternative to the question he really wanted to know.

"A while," she said.

Her answer, so honest yet also indistinct, plucked at a string tethered to Hope's heart. ___When did she stop keeping track? _"All alone?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she said. "Help turns up now and then, but mostly I'm a one woman show."

"And are things getting any better?"

"_Define ____better_." They'd reached the end of the corridor by this point and both of them paused, glancing between the door marked MORGUE and the other room across from it, labeled SUPPLIES.

"I meant, are you winning?" Hope clarified, as Lightning stepped up to the supply room door and held her hand against its surface.

She closed her eyes and fell silent for a few seconds, before stepping back and lowering her arm with a shake of her head. "It's not in here. Looks like you were right in calling the morgue."

"Oh, yay."

"And... What I do? What _we're _doing? It isn't about winning, Hope. Not for me, anyway."

Hope considered this as they both turned to the Morgue and stared at the door. Neither of them moved to open it. "Then what do you fight for?" he asked, "Why even bother fighting at all – besides the contract, I mean."

Lightning held her hand against the door and closed her eyes. She pulled it back at once, glaring at the back of her hand and the little red weal that was starting to appear beneath the patches of armor and fabric that didn't cover her hand. "This one's bitter," she muttered.

"You all right?"

"I'll be fine," she said, in a tone that sounded far too close to Hope's earlier lie. A lie he never asked her to make, and certainly not for his benefit. "... I'm doing all this because I made a promise. And I'm not gonna go back on my word. I couldn't live with myself."

Hope wanted to ask more, but he couldn't bring himself to pry into the wound that her silence had become. He watched as Lightning took a long breath, closed her eyes, and let it out in a slow, weary sigh. When she looked at Hope again, it was with a stare as glossy and vague as a prelude to tears, but none dared to arrive.

"Ready?" she asked.

Hope nodded. "Let's get it over with."

"I'll take point. You stick close behind and move in once I've got the bastard cornered. Got it?"

However much this offer might appeal to him – and it did certainly take off a great deal of weight from the part of Hope that was still, even now, insisting to dismiss everything as a fever dream – Hope knew he couldn't take it. ___If she takes point then that puts her first in line for danger,_he thought, though it wasn't the only reason Hope had for turning her offer down. ___If she takes point then I've got a better chance of looking around the room, and with my luck, my parents'll still be laid out on a slab._

Hope wouldn't picture them. He couldn't. And he did, anyway. He fought and failed not to imagine their bodies, pale blue and bloodless, their eyes forever shut and their bodies marred by wounds he had somehow managed to avoid. ___Didn't have rotten luck then,_he thought, fighting back a laugh that felt as bitter as poison. ___Wonder where it ran off to now?_

"Why don't you let me take point this time?" he said, his tone as cold as the room, though he had lost all ability to care about how deeply that chill ran through him. His heart was a cinder learning how to take spark, and it would use every ounce of doubt he had as kindling.

"If you're sure," she said.

Hope nodded, but he didn't say if he was. He was grateful that Lightning didn't call him out for this particular lie. Maybe it wasn't too great a sin if it was never said.

Everything after this false oath appeared, once again, at the end of that dark tunnel from when Hope had transformed and fought. He watched as he lifted his free hand and opened the door, gliding through with a stride that showed purpose and not doubt. The core was an oozing, festering sore of black and red, bundled up in the far corner of the room like a spider resting in the heart of its web. In the center of this gruesome mass, Hope could see a mouth, toothless and gaping wide, and a pair of eyes a few inches above the orifice. Blood red and pitiless, the eyes moved their attention from Hope's weapon to his face, and shrieked at whatever expression was written there.

It didn't scream for long.

Hope told himself he didn't feel pity for the wretched thing because its existence eliminated all chance for the emotion to thrive. ___It contaminates everything close by,_Hope thought, ___and fills it with the opposite of what we're meant to have__. _It was certainly a convincing enough lie, even to the voice of doubt that now grumbled in the back of his head.

Though it didn't quite explain those moments of relief Hope had felt about his parents being dead.

"Hope!" Lightning shouted, digging her fingers into his arm and pulling him back with all the strength she had. "That's enough! It's... it's gone."

He turned to look at her, and though she didn't utter a sound, Hope was sure there was some part of Lightning screaming inside, judging by the way her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open in a slack, silent gasp.

Before he could apologize – though it would have felt more natural in that moment to simply laugh, throw back his head, and never stop until his throat went dry – the door to the Morgue slammed open again. A woman with olive skin and dark eyes appeared in the doorway. She was neither alone, nor unarmed.

"Easy there," she purred, pointing her gun at Hope, then glancing at Lightning. "The both of you. Hands up, weapons down, and keep your mouths shut."

Hope wanted to laugh even more now with the arrival of this new, strange woman, but he was stopped by what Lightning did next.

She rolled her eyes, frowned, and folded her arms over her chest. She couldn't be more disobedient if she tried.

"What the hell do you want, Lebreau?" Lightning asked.

"That's no way to talk to a family friend," the woman named Lebreau said.

"We aren't friends."

"I didn't mean you, grumpy. I meant your sister."

"You don't get to talk about Serah," Lightning snapped. "Not ever. And especially not to me."

"Lucky for us both, I didn't come here to reminisce about the past," Lebreau said. She looked at Hope now, and took a few more steps into the room so that the stern, stony face behind her could also enter. Hope kept his eyes on this newcomer, a man as wide as he was tall, with brilliant red hair and a pair of eyes that moved with almost insulting indifference over the dead core behind Hope, Hope himself, and Lightning's defiance.

"You should really put your hands up, Lightning," Lebreau said." I don't wanna get rough with you."

"I can take you," Lightning snarled.

"You sure about that?" Lebreau smiled, and her eyes grew darker, matching her tone. "Me, my little friend, and Gadot here make a pretty mean tag team."

"What do you want?" Hope asked, drawing the heat off of Lightning for a few moments. He wished she'd put her hands up already – he doubted whatever tricks she had up her sleeve involved surviving a bullet at point blank range.

"To take you in for a little chat and some intel briefing," Lebreau said, and she moved the gun off of Hope in a slow, menacing little shift that now included Lightning. "The Patron's not happy with you, girlie."

"I don't care about him."

"You're still lugging that old grudge around?" The man, who could only be Gadot, said, shaking his head. He almost seemed to pity Lightning, or at least her attempt to make some brave, final stand. "Don't make this harder than it has to be. Enough with the grandstanding and swollen pride, Light. We're all in this together."

"Like hell we are," Lightning snapped, and before Hope could blink, she lifted up her hand, bent her fingers into claws, _and ____pulled_.

The entire room began to tilt beneath their feet, and they all stumbled under the force of Lightning's grasp.

___Some trick__, _Hope thought, as his head hit the floor and the air fled his lungs. The banging he heard next was either the others crashing to the floor, his own heart going wild in his chest – or a gunshot.

He prayed it wasn't that and, like Lightning had shown earlier with the little pocketing trick, prayed again that he could make his own wishes come true. The situation certainly called for it, and was considerably more dire than the art of sheathing a magic weapon. Lives were at stake here, and not just any life, _but ____hers_.

_"The Maid of Eden, trapped in the knot of cycles. Help her, Hope. Help her - however you can."_

_She can't die. Please, she can't die, she can't be hurt - not now, not her, not ever. Please._

* * *

In the grim dark, across a distance immeasurable by magic or night, the Primarch laughed.

"Not yet," he said.


	7. Chapter 7 - Divine Love

**Chapter 7 **– Divine Love

"Light, _no_!" Hope cried, gritting his teeth in pain as his shoulders slammed against the side of the metal slab behind him. The body on top, which Hope was vaguely sure had been a man's, landed heavily down on the floor on the opposite side.

He had been so focused on attacking the core, and on forcing himself not to imagine his parents' bodes reanimated and waiting to claw at him, that Hope didn't spare a thought to the other occupants of the morgue. Lightning's comment about cemeteries echoed inside of Hope's head as he waited for his vision to clear, black and red spots popping in front of his eyes, making him blind.

Hope heard the shriek of metal colliding against the floor as pliers, knives, clamps, and scales all fell down with a crash, soon overpowered by a loud, short scream. A woman's. _Please be safe, Lightning. Please, please be all right._

He closed his eyes tight – and opened them in a dream.

* * *

It had to be a dream, because Hope wasn't afraid. If he felt anything at all, it was the weightless, gentle warmth of happiness, which was no different than being cradled inside a pair of tender hands. Hope couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this way when he was awake. Half a year ago, maybe, when he spent the night with one of the other researchers at the Academy. But that memory was hazy at best, all its comfort gone. Nothing but static images on a flat surface, waiting to fade in the dust.

The dream expanded, revealing a spiral abyss in the air that, for all its frightening size, could be blotted out by a single thumb and one shut eye. Hope watched as the light inside the spiral spread its rays across the scene in front of him, bringing to life a craggy, shattered stone street, with blocks broken off of the main precipice only to freeze in mid-air, constantly falling, never reaching bottom. _That's the trouble with being weightless, _he thought, taking a few cautious steps closer to edge so that he could peer down over it. _You can never fall, but you can never land, either. Trapped in a stasis in between._ Hope thought about what Yeul had said, about the place where they met, all the links and threads that wound around Lightning and himself.

This couldn't be the same place. Could it? _But I wasn't anywhere near her – I didn't touch Light this time._

The light from the spiral shined down on a small, round table, crystal clear and as thin as glass. Prisms of color stretched across the broken ground, illuminating Hope's bare feet in a ray of colors. Stark red, brilliant yellow, bruise blue. The table was set for a meal, but there was no food on display. The cutlery, newly polished, gleamed in the light without a scratch or a mark to mar them. Two candles, standing proudly in pillars of bronze whose bases were carved to look like claws, sat facing each other across the intimate distance of the table. Hope couldn't shake the strange impression that they were acting in the stead of the people who had either left their seats or never made it to the table at all. As Hope approached, the white wicks of the candles grew dark, stained, then ignited in a quiet cry. The flames beckoned him closer. The one of his left was pink, while the one in reach of his right hand was a watery, emerald green.

_Just like the two of us, _Hope thought, reaching out to pass his fingers from the green light to the pink, then back again. They didn't burn him; the flames bent beneath his touch, bowing low enough to avoid hurting him. And he didn't have the heart to snuff them out. All he wanted was to get close enough to feel them, to have their warmth slip further inside and take root.

A light that never goes out, and a hope that never fades. _Is that what we are? Is that what we can be? _Hope didn't see how this would go against what Yeul had named him, nor did he think it opposed the terms of the Primarch's contract. Even the name Light had given to them both was without a doubt a positive thing. But so far all Hope had seen of a Guardian's responsibilities involved an awful lot of fighting, and far too much violence than he thought he'd ever be able to perform, much less endure.

_That's probably where the Chaos part comes in. _And yet...

A Guardian of Chaos didn't have to be a terrible thing. Not if Hope decided it shouldn't be. _No one else is responsible for my own life or the choices I make during it_. That went double for what Hope made of this _new _life, with all its responsibilities and toils. And besides, hadn't there been another meaning to chaos besides confusion and disorder? He thought there must be – a little scrap of courage in the back of his mind insisted that there _had _to be. Something about the distance that separated earth from heaven, or the void before the world was made...

Could chaos really be so dreadful if it had a name? Like death, despair, and orphan, if a state of being could be named, then it could be understood – no matter how terrifying.

The flames of the candles on the table bowed lower, either in response to this thought or from a will unknown to Hope. In the distance, he heard a laugh.

Hope looked up to the spiral of light in the sky and thought for just a moment he saw an eye peering down at him. Granite grey and passionless, the eye swept over him once, taking in everything from his bare feet to his curious expression – and then was gone.

Not even the contract signing with the Primarch had been as weird as this. Eyes in the sky? Crumbling walls floating in mid-air? Dancing flames? Hope had either gone completely mad, or his mind was learning how to refine the art of head trauma.

_It's just a dream. It has to be._ Hope didn't know how else to make sense of what he saw than to think it was yet another little mental retreat. His mind was already under enough strain without the pervasive – but wholly necessary – influence of a morphine drip. The extent of his injuries wasn't nearly as ghastly now, thanks to whatever Lightning had done during their first meeting, but the attendants hadn't managed to realize that fact.

Hope tried to tell himself that without definitive proof, he couldn't write off Dr. Wos or Alyssa as dead. Some sort of miracle might have happened to prevent that very likely possibility, and Hope clung to this idea as if it would heal him further. The weight in his chest and the tender ache pressing down against every thought was cheered however briefly to think that there was something impossibly _good _to make up for all the other impossibly _bad _things of late.

More peals of laughter rang out from the abyss above, targeting this thought and the hope that bloomed inside his chest. The laughter sounded like his own, but Hope hadn't laughed like that in...

How long _had_ it been?

The flames on the candles dipped lower, sputtered once, and then went out with a tender sigh. Hope watched as the smoke – pure white and gossamer, like ribbons of a veil reaching back up into the sky – tangled and twisted and held onto each other, until it formed a kind of silver cage around the table. Hope put his hand on the back of the nearest chair which is when he realized that he wasn't alone.

Lightning was at the table, sitting to his right. Half of her face was angled in the shadows, out of reach of the golden spiral and the terrible grey eye, but the part of her face that Hope could see was fixed in a gentle smile.

He sat down next to her and wondered, in the sort of idle way that dreamers can seize a thought and make it come true, if there was only one part of Lightning to see. There was no other half of her to discover, and what remained cloaked in shadow was merely just that: shadow, void, vapor and nothing more.

_Getting a little tired of this dreamworld stuff, to be honest._

Lightning held out a hand not to reach for Hope's own, which were resting flat on the table, but to pick up a teapot. It was dented and battered horribly, and the reflections it cast back of Hope and Lightning were strained and thin, misshapen to look like they were fixed in permanent screams.

"Tea again?" Hope mused. Dreams _and _tea?

Lightning tilted her head and considered this. "Is there something wrong with tea?" she asked. She sounded more gentle than he'd ever heard her, as if every word contained the warmth of her smile.

It didn't feel right.

"Seems like it's showing up a lot lately," he said, nodding his thanks as Lightning filled his tea cup. It was chipped and cracked, but a gold filling had bled through every spidery fault, calling attention to the damage. "That's all I meant."

"Are you sure that's not just a fever dream of yours?"

"Normally I'd be sure it wasn't, but now..." He almost smiled at that. Almost.

"Maybe your mind's trying to tell you something," she offered.

"Probably. Isn't that all dreams are? Messages from your mind about things you're not doing right?"

"That's one way to look at them," Lightning said. "I always thought of dreams as a way for our souls to reach some kind of higher understanding."

"Uh, right. Maybe." Hope would have tentatively accepted this curious remark, if Lightning weren't smiling so mindlessly throughout – and if half of her face weren't blanketed in shadow. _Like a phantom, _he thought, his mind turning back to the shades that plagued him at his hospital bed side. _A phantom with hair like roses, and eyes like the sea._

"Are you all right, Hope?"

"I'm... not sure," he said, addressing both her puzzling behavior and the question.

"It's fine, Hope. Don't think too much about it. Just know that I've got your back."

Lightning held her left hand out again, and this time Hope took it. He didn't feel her under his touch, neither the warmth of her skin nor the edge of the bones beneath her skin. It felt like air, nothing more.

"Thanks," Hope said. He tried to smile, but he felt every part of him rebel against the expression again. His eyes searched for Lightning's, and found only the one, pale and broken, peering at him. _A phantom with a warm smile._

"God is laughing at you," she said.

"What?"

She was still smiling, still showing only the left side of her face, and Hope had never felt more wary. "I said, _God is laughing at you._"

Hope couldn't understand, but when he opened his mouth to ask her to explain, he said, "And why should God care about me?"

Lightning's smile slipped as if a string had snapped and the puppet on the other end suddenly sank beneath the weight of its own hollow limbs. It was only a moment until her lips widened again, creating a broader smile this time, with a hint of teeth.

"Since when was laughing a sign of concern?" she asked, and when Hope had no response prepared, she pulled her hand out of his, drew it down onto her lap, and continued to speak. Her left eye shone dark and deep, like the abyss in the sea.

_But that's not right, _Hope thought, closing his hands into fists. _Her eyes are lighter than that, brighter, prettier._

"You're in His sights now, Hope," Lightning – or part of the woman who _looked _like Lightning – said, "and part of having God's attention means to suffer for His entertainment. It's always been that way, ever since His Firstborn were created and orphaned. It'll always be that way, unless there comes the day when one is cruel enough to challenge Divine Law. Until then: you're targeted, you're laughed at, and you can either find joy in the mockery or suffer more at the sound. That's what it means to be on the receiving end of His love. Some people might consider it an honor, you know."

Hope felt his heart crack open, as if there were a seam running down the core of the organ, ready to bleed on command. He didn't know how to make sense of this information. It was as obtuse and frustrating as the last message he'd been given over tea, by Yeul and her own personal guardians. _Reincarnations and holy maids and who the hell knew what else. _But why the hell was Lightning saying it now – and why would he even imagine her saying it in a dream?

_Unless Caius knows something about glamours._ But Hope couldn't even laugh at that thought, however much he would have liked to.

Hope chewed on the inside of his cheek with the ridges of his teeth, and yet he felt no pain, no matter how hard he dug his teeth against the soft flesh. _It's just a dream, _he told himself, becoming less certain with every silent word. _Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. Nothing more._

"Hope? What's on your mind?"

The words that came out next weren't exactly what Hope expected to say. "I'm not _some _people, Light. I never... I don't care about any of that stuff." Hope looked up at the golden spiral in the sky, but the eye was gone now, replaced by a darkness that terrified. "My parents created me, and whatever else I became over the years is all thanks to myself, my own decisions and repeated mistakes. It has nothing to do with being loved or watched by God. I can't even imagine why he would want to pay attention to one person in particular, not when there's so many other people who could interest him."

"Like who? Let's hear an example."

Hope spoke once more without thinking. There was no voice of doubt to pester him this time, just a silence that permitted all manner of awful confessions. "Like the Patron. He's in charge of taking care of Eden, him and everyone he's appointed to that Conseil," Hope said, casting his mind back to what little he'd learned about the new government in the five years it had seized power. "If God was going to keep an eye on anyone, wouldn't it be a leader? Someone with serious responsibilities and equally dire consequences?"

Lightning, or whoever she was, said nothing. She blinked once, and her smile did not waver.

Hope wondered if he were brave enough to reach out and press his fingers to the edge of her mouth. Maybe then she'd stop. The smile looked far too fragile to last under the pressure of any kind of opposition. But the thought did not pass the stage of wonder, and when Hope spoke again it was after a long moment of inaction.

"Who am I in comparison to that? Just some guy who didn't die when he probably should have."

"Is that how you see yourself?" Lightning asked.

"That's the most significant thing I've done with my life so far, Light. And it turns out I didn't even do much – I _didn't _do something. That's my one bragging right: I didn't die. And that's not much at all."

"It's more than most people manage," she countered, and for the first time since the conversation began, she sounded like the Lightning he knew. "Don't underrate how important it is to be a survivor, Hope. Especially not with the hand you've been dealt."

"Do you know something about my life that I don't?"

How quickly her fire faded. "I didn't mean it like that. Forget it. Don't listen to me."

Hope couldn't take it any more. He looked at the backs of his hands, still bent into fists, and said, "... You don't sound like yourself, Light. Are you okay?"

"What am I supposed to sound like, then?" she wondered, truly curious.

Hope shook his head. "I don't know. A little more serious and strict, I guess."

She thought about this for a long while. Longer than she ought to have done, and far longer than was normal. "I see."

"But I like that about you," Hope said, rushing on. _Maybe I can bring her back if I'm nice, if I start telling her the truth. _It was a long shot, but it was all Hope had to cling to at the moment. "I'm starting to like that about you, I mean."

"'Starting to?'" Lightning repeated. "You mean you didn't like it before?"

"... Light, what's the matter?" he asked again, determined to get an answer this time.

But Lightning shook her head and kept smiling. "It's nothing. Don't worry about me. … Keep talking, Hope. I'm listening."

"I don't have anything else to say."

"How else do you see me? Start with that."

"Serious and strict –"

"You said that," she cut in.

"... With a pretty short temper, but you try hard to rein it in."

Her smile ebbed just enough to look sad. "Go on."

Hope looked at the shadow looming in her eye and wondered if it had anything to do with the part of her that was hidden from view. What else was she hiding? How much, and for how long? "And you seem... lonely."

Silence. "I see. Maybe."

Hope closed his eyes and took a breath, but he could still see that awful, dark eye and the motionless doll's smile. It was with a tremendous effort that he opened his eyes again and turned to look at his partner once more. "What's this all about, Light?"

"Hope – have you forgotten? Do you really not remember at all?" The question seemed to come not only from her lips, but from the abyss above them both. Hope glanced up at the spiral, at the storm frozen in endless rings in the sky. It had grown paler, as if small points of light were trying to brush back the oblivion inside.

"What's there to remember?" he asked.

"Hope..." It was Lightning turn to close her eye. Hope saw the shade of a bruise blooming beneath her short, pale lashes. It was spreading out over the thin bridge of her nose to the darkness on the other side. "To me you are more precious than gold and more fragile than glass. And that's why God laughs at _you_."

"Excuse me?"

Lightning opened her eye, and there were tears swimming around the edge, threatening to fall at any moment. "And even if the rest of the world has to fade away and die, I'd sit back and watch it happen... As long as it meant you could be safe," she said. "And that's why God laughs at _me_."

Hope's cheeks burned. The laughter in the sky returned, long and low and deep, making his ribs tremble. "Um, that's... I mean... Are you sure that's how you feel? What about your sister?" Hope reached for anything he could in that moment, and the knowledge of Lightning's sister surfaced out of desperation. _That woman with the gun mentioned her, before the room got turned on its head._

The bruise around Lightning's eye deepened, pulsing dark purple with the blood insisting to break free from the surface. "No one else needs me. Serahdoesn't need me – not anymore."

Hope couldn't stop himself. He reached out to hold her hand, before remembering it was out of his touch, then settled for trying to pat her shoulder. She flinched under his touch and bowed lower in her seat, her shoulders raised high, her chin lowering to her chest. _Like a rose closing its petals back into a bud._

"That can't be right," he said, keeping his voice low. "If that's true then Light... why are you smiling?"

And she _was_ smiling. Impossibly, horribly, beyond all of Hope's ability to comprehend, Lightning was still smiling while revealing such tender wounds that pitted her heart. He wondered if these bits of shame and disgrace even hurt her anymore, or if Lightning could only laugh at the pain now, so often had it made itself a companion to her every thought. He could almost understand why someone would consider God's laughter a sign of love, if the alternative was to feel pain with no illusory reprieve. How was his behavior about Dr. Wos and Alyssa any different?

Lightning's smile trembled, like ripples on a lake that distorted the moon-like reflection of her face. Pale, wan, and bright, she was now distorted and strange. Only her voice stayed the same, as gentle and airy light as ever. "I smothered her and called it love; I trapped her and said it was to keep her safe. There are so many ways to kill someone you love, Hope, and call it kindness instead. Well, she got out – she got away from me, and I have no one but myself to blame. I can't hold it against her, not really... Rebellion sort of runs in the family. I know I could never live as someone else's slave; I'd rather die – hell, I'd even settle for living with someone like Snow. I guess that's the same thing."

Lightning turned to look at Hope full in the face, removing her other half from the shadow that had darkened its every shape. Hope lost his breath and his mind besides.

If she noticed his reaction, Lightning didn't care. "Anyway, it's just you and me now, Hope. Everything else I love disappeared, and they were right to leave me. All of them. And that's why _I'm _laughing."

And she started to do just that. It was a quiet laugh at first, barely more than a chuckle that leaked from her throat, and it became a louder, grisly sound in no time at all. Hope moved his eyes away from her mouth – the right side was withered and bloodless, the lips pulled back to reveal blackened gums, half rotten away – to the rest of her face. The left side was poised and polished, without a flaw at all except for the bruise that was ringing her eye, arching over to the other side. There was no eye on the other side, only a wound where the eye should have been, and faint traces of flesh left on cracked bone. Her hair had fallen away in large clumps, revealing the dust pale skull beneath the scalp. Tears leaked from the wound that the other half of her face had become, an endless succession of agony without a word to make it right or cease.

Somehow – cruelly, impossibly so – Lightning was still speaking through all this, though parts of her were crumbling as surely as the world around the pair of them now. Hope couldn't see how the words she said made any sense, but she was forcing herself to speak all the same. And he would listen, because it was his partner, because she deserved to be heard, because to him, she was...

"I need you to believe in me, Hope. I need you to... I need... you..."

Once more, Hope held her between his hands and once more he couldn't feel a single thing in his touch. She was air, she was shadow; she was an image and not the item. Nothing more than idea born in a half-mad dream.

_Just a dream, just a dream , just a dream._ But it couldn't be a dream, Hope realized at last, because it hurt too much and scared him even worse.


	8. Chapter 8 - Uneasy Lies the Head

**Chapter 8 – **Uneasy Lies The Head

Hope's sense of sound returned first as a deep, male voice said, "... Looks like he's startin' to come around."

_That should be Gadot, _Hope thought, counting off the first name in the list of those who survived whatever the hell had happened in the morgue. Lightning would be on there too – wouldn't she? She had to be. Hope refused to let himself think long on the other possibility.

"Hurry up and get 'em on his feet," another voice said. Female and unfamiliar, a little husky and teasing. _That'll be Lebreau_, Hope thought, working his face into a frown. She noticed, but misunderstood his expression.

"Sorry. That hurt? You'll be all right soon, pretty boy." Hope could feel a hand quickly pat him on the head. "The Medic will get to work on you right away."

Last but not least, Hope heard a familiar, furious voice rise up just as he felt the arms supporting and tugging at him in turns fall away, replaced by a comforting, cool touch. He immediately imagined Lightning's hand, and all the tension in his body evaporated at the contact, though his pain didn't fade. It was as biting sharp and insistent as ever, demanding the right to thrive.

"Back off!" Lightning said. "You've done enough already, haven't you?"

Hope opened his eyes to the sight of a high-ceilinged, dark green room. Across from him was a wall decorated with windows that were arched at the top and lined with dark, tinted glass. It made the outside world seem constantly cast in a nighttime shade, and made the golden lights in the bronze sconces along the walls seem all the more warm and bright. He wondered if that were on purpose.

The room must have been a sick bay or an infirmary of some kind, because it had all the starched, lifeless air of a room made for someone who was far from well and in need of getting back on the mend. The bed Lightning was helping him stumble towards was significantly softer than the one the hospital had given to him, and for that Hope would thank all the forces of heaven, should they be listening. _Listening and not laughing, _he thought. It was an important distinction to make.

It was a relief to settle down on the plush, eggshell blankets with matching pillows and sheets decorated in a pale blue trim, so similar to the comfort that Lightning's presence and touch granted. Hope wondered how much of that was the head trauma talking. He took in a long breath and turned his head to the side, keeping the trio in sight. In the corner of his eye, he could see a blurry approximation of the pillow's decoration, much more lavish than he expected it to be. The stitching was wavy and delicate, as if someone had tried to replicate wind and waves in their needlework. _Or ice floes, _he thought, trying to run his hand over the pale stitches. But his arms wouldn't move; the muscles had locked with another burst of pain.

Gadot frowned at Lightning's back as she hovered closer to Hope's bedside. "He'll be all right; you've been training him, haven't you?" he asked.

Lightning began to smooth a crease in the blanket beneath Hope's arm, a nervous fidget that drew his sympathy and attention. "Sort of," she admitted, spitting out the words. "We haven't had the time to really go over most things..." Her words trailed off, and her eyes met Hope's curious stare. "Welcome back," she said, her voice soft, like a kiss.

Hope smiled back at her as warmly as he could. "Let me guess. I'm hurt again."

Lightning's responding smile was shy and small, and gone far too quickly.

"This sort of thing happen a lot?" Gadot asked, crossing to stand at the foot of Hope's bed.

"Seems that way, yeah," Hope admitted, watching the way the man's shadow stretched across him. Though the conversation was being conducted on relatively polite terms, he wouldn't be forgetting his first impression of Gadot and Lebreau any time soon. Lightning seemed of a similar mind; she turned to keep both in her sight, as if she expected this courtesy to fail. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he'd help her with whatever decision she made, and keep her safe from any consequence that decision brought about. But that was all big talk, words thrown to the wind with no hope of taking root. Hope had to admit he didn't have the best track record in sticking to what he wanted to have done.

Gadot offered Hope a friendly smile, full of sympathy. It clashed with Hope's first impression of the man, enough to leave him reeling. "It could be worse," he said. "You could've been shot directly. The bullet only grazed your arm."

_So that's what hurts. _The pain had become a wider, spreading sensation with no direct source, joining forces with all the aches that Hope had collected over the past week.

"Doesn't _feel_ like it grazed me," Hope said, glancing at his left arm and the hastily done up bandage that was tied around the wound. Growing darker with blood and fastened tight enough to make the skin around it tremble with the force of his circulation, the bandage looked to be torn off a part of Hope's hospital gown. He almost pitied the thing: it had taken just as much damage as himself.

"Why'd you shoot me?" Hope asked.

Lebreau huffed. "I didn't _want _to shoot you. It was an accident."

"Save it," Lightning snapped, waving a hand to toss Lebreau's reasoning back towards her, rejecting any attempt to apologize.

Lying down on his back, Hope turned his eyes once again to Lightning. She leaned closer, positioning herself to block Gadot and Lebreau from getting a closer view of Hope. She seemed half ready to climb on the bed herself, but Hope wouldn't think about that for long. _The head trauma again._

"This view's getting a little familiar," he said to her.

Despite the tension in the room, Lightning chuckled. Hope chose to believe it was part of some unknown measure of charm he'd developed, or that Lightning was starting to grow fond of him, despite him being such incessantly dead weight. "I've noticed. You _do _have a knack for ending up flat on your back."

Unlucky for them both, Lebreau and Gadot hadn't quite gotten the message that this was the start of a side conversation. "_Excuse_ me?" Lebreau asked, her eyes growing wide and her eyebrows arching high.

Gadot snorted as he folded his arms, giving Hope and Lightning a long, searching stare. "Are you blushing, Lightning?" he asked.

Hope thought it was bizarrely sweet that Lightning seemed not to understand. _Maybe she's acting. _That was almost painfully endearing.

"No...?" she said, narrowing her eyes as she examined the other two people in the room, completely at a loss to the joke. "Why would I be?"

Lebreau shook her head, either at Lightning's naivete or her farce. "I know _I _would be, if I let something like that slip out. Talk about a dirty mind."

"You're one to talk, Lebreau," Gadot pointed out.

The penny having dropped at last, Hope watched as a muscle in Lightning's jaw twitched and she grit her teeth. He couldn't blame her for seething so badly at becoming the punchline in a joke she had unintentionally set up. "Everybody shut the hell up," she snapped, making her hands into fists.

Hope reached out with his unwounded arm and gave the knuckles on her closest hand a soft squeeze. Her anger was palpable, and burned like acid on the back of his tongue, to say nothing of her embarrassment.

"_Relax_, Lightning," Lebreau said, beating Hope to it. Though she said it in a tone that mocked more than it soothed. "It was just a joke."

Lightning turned the force of her glare on the other woman, who didn't shy back at all. "Why are you still here, anyway?" she demanded, shifting her eyes onto Gadot. He looked down briefly, rather than having to face the force of that glare. "Shouldn't you run on back to report to the Patron?"

Gadot answered this time, his tone measured and steady. "He already knows we're here; we didn't exactly come in quietly, thanks to the racket you two were making."

"And we've got a few things to say to the Medic when she gets here," Lebreau added.

Lightning frowned. "The Medic...? Oh, I see. So she's still working here." Her expression and tone cleared up as fast as a storm burning away under the force of the sun. Hope was astonished to see that Lightning was actually approaching something like a smile, a true one that warmed her eyes.

Lebreau noted this reaction long enough to ruin it. "Yeah, she's still with us. I guess she figured it was smarter than going rogue. Unlike _some_ people I could mention."

Gadot groaned just as Lightning took a step forward, closer to Lebreau. Her fists were still clenched and her teeth still bared like an animal ready to gnaw through flesh and down to the prize of bone. Hope struggled to sit up in his bed, but a lance of pain bolted down his arm and back, forcing him to lie down again. Luckily, Gadot was of a similar mind to end the feud before it could start, with the added benefit that he wasn't incapacitated. He held out one hand to keep Lightning at bay, while the other was raised to point at his comrade.

"Lebreau, find the off switch already. We're not here to pick a fight."

Lebreau shrugged and turned away, pacing idly towards the door to the room. Gadot watched her go before he turned to address Lightning. He towered over her, but she gave no hint at being afraid or in any way intimidated by his massive size. Hope supposed it helped that Gadot was the most even-tempered one in the room at the moment.

"Look, Vanille will be here in a little bit," he said, looking Lightning square in the eye and letting her see the warmth behind his gaze. It was her turn to look away, unable to endure that unexpected bit of tenderness.

This change of mood didn't make sense to Hope. First the two of them arrived bearing guns and the distinctly arrogant air of people not interested in wasting time. Now they were unarmed, laid-back, with no more hostility than a barbed tongue and petty sarcasm. And that only applied to Lebreau. Gadot was proving himself to be an unexpectedly pleasant stranger, though he looked like he could flex his arm and snap your neck as easily as stepping on a twig.

Gadot continued to speak to Lightning. "She'll patch Hope up and before you know it, he'll be as good as new. There's no need to worry." His lips tightened around the next set of words, but either Lightning's silence or his own hidden store of bravery made him speak more. "And... not for nothing, but as a future reference, from one friend to another? You really ought to consider reining it in just a bit."

Lightning's head shot up. _She's used to giving orders, _Hope thought, _and she's definitely not used to being criticized._ "What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

From her position near the door, Lebreau peered over her shoulder, placing one hand on her hip. "He means you overreacted," she supplied with a little smile. She tilted her chin to nod at Hope lying on the bed. "Your partner wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't turned the room into a tilt-a-whirl."

Lightning stepped around Gadot's massive body to snap at Lebreau. "Which I wouldn't have had to do, if you two didn't burst into the room holding us at gunpoint. What the hell were _you_ thinking?" she asked, looking back and forth from the unlikely pair. Hope found it incredibly kind of her not to just open up a pocket and rip out her sword. _She's mad enough to do it._

Lebreau snorted, leaning against the far wall and picking at her nails. Lightning's temper was far from an interesting to her, and nothing at all to fear. Hope didn't know if he should admire her or wonder at how often the two women butted heads in the past to have developed this kind of immunity.

"The guns weren't for you," Lebreau said, examining her nails. "We know better than to run up against a core unarmed, Lightning. We're not idiots."

"Could have fooled me."

"That's because you don't have your head screwed on straight. You only think about something long enough to consider where to kick it, and that doesn't always solve a problem."

"I'm not here to listen to lectures from _you_."

"No one said you had to listen to me. But I'm free to talk about whatever I want."

Before anyone could react to this clear challenge, the large, black door to the room opened with a loud click. It swung back to reveal a short woman with bright red hair. Her eyes were a bright and clear green, of a lighter shade than Hope's, and she was dressed in a long, dark blue gown whose collar encircled the delicate stem of her neck.

_It must be some kind of uniform_, Hope thought, looking at her and back to Lebreau and Gadot. Though they weren't dressed in gowns, nor were their outfits nearly as elaborately polished as hers, they did wear uniforms of a similar color and style.

The sleeves of the red-headed woman's dress were long and tailored close to her arms, bearing the same flowing, rolling pattern Hope saw on his pillow. He wondered if it was some kind of motif for the place he and Lightning had been brought to – wherever _that_ was. _Ice, maybe? A glacier? _His gut told him it had something to do with the Patron, considering that Gadot and Lebreau were still here, but he had little knowledge of the Palace. Most citizens of Eden saw very little of the Palace, even before the coup five years past when the last regime had been ousted in favor of the Patron and his Conseil. There were obviously no tours allowed of the Palace, not even for educational field trips, and whatever official interviews they'd done since taking over usually happened at indistinct locations in a garden or terrace.

_Father always said they liked to keep their secrets, in order to keep themselves safe. "The Lord guards his faithful flock from all who seek to harm them." _And though father and son agreed on very little at any point of their lives, Hope couldn't help but feel that his father's assertion that this secrecy did nothing to keep the people of Eden safe was an accurate criticism to make. There wasn't much safety in fear or the darkness.

Hope assumed such distance was done on purpose, to create a "necessary" space between those who ruled and those had to be ruled – but the arrival of this bright-eyed woman threw such an assumption for a loop. She had an air of sweetness to her far unlike anything Hope had expected out of a person involved in politics, particularly whatever sort the Patron had assembled for his crew. _They can't exactly be the nicest bunch of people in the world, _he always assumed, _not if they have enough will and force to topple an entire government and set up their own._

… _So why can't I remember what that was like? Why... can't I remember it... happening? _The absence of the memory sent a sliver of ice through Hope's heart, dripping down from the hole in his mind where such information surely would have gone. He stared in horror down at his body, wondering how he could contain such an awful, gaping flaw within him and still be able to function reliably.

_Looks like being a Guardian isn't going to help with that. _If anything, such a power and responsibility _created _the problem. But Hope had always been damaged in some way, even before he died and made that contract with the Primarch. Maybe not entirely broken, but close enough to make the harm significant enough to run a crack through his very mind, severing a space between a complete, functioning person, and a fragment trying his best to play the part.

_And I'm not the only one hurt in this way._ His father had to have been as well; it had to have run in the family, considering everything his father said and did. Considering what his mother had to put up with and condone always, endlessly, with a tireless compassion that would infuriate a saint. Considering how Hope hadn't thought for a second about whether he preferred to live or die, when it came down to having to answer the deceptively simple question. He was once again full of nothing but an absence. _I didn't particularly enjoy life, but I had no interest in dying at the time, either._

"_God is laughing at you,_" Lightning had said in the dream. Hope wasn't sure if he believed it until just now. God had to laugh, to take part in the creation of someone like him.

_Pull yourself together. Get out of your head, get out of your thoughts – focus on something else. You aren't helping right now, but the others can._

_Focus on something else._

The red-headed woman – she was a Medic, that much Hope remembered – stared around at them all with a look of polite curiosity, which quickly became an easy, reassuring smile when she saw Hope lying on the bed. It was a wide, bright grin, showing an even row of white teeth. Pretty and gentle, the exact sort of person you want to tend to you at your bedside. _Where was she in the hospital? _Hope wondered, still stuck on that particular grievance. If Lightning's smiles were gentle and warm, the Medic's smiles felt like the sun warming your skin all over.

"Is this the patient?" she asked, turning to address the other three people in the room. She had a distinct accent, one Hope hadn't heard before.

"It is," Lebreau said, waving at the newcomer. "You'll like him, Vanille. He's much nicer than his friend over there."

"Would you stop it?" Gadot sighed.

Lightning opened her mouth, but Vanille cut her off with a little shake of her head and a frown.

"This kind of bickering is bad for the patient; you'll only make him more upset than he has to be."

Hope pulled himself into a sitting position, using the pillows and sheets for leverage. "I don't think they could make me feel any worse," he said.

Vanille smiled at him again. "All the same, I'm going to have to ask them to leave. _All _of you."

Lebreau and Gadot shared a glance and, with much time wasted and muttering under their breath, strolled out of the room. They left the door open behind them, a clear invitation that they expected to be followed, but Lightning made no attempt to move from Hope's side.

Vanille approached the bed and clasped her hands over the front of her stomach, creating a little knot of fingers and twiddling thumbs. "Even you, Lightning," she said. "I'm sorry." She spoke to Lightning not as if they were strangers, but with a sadness that suggested a history arching the distance between where they were and whatever Vanille remembered them to be.

_Girlfriend? Friend? Family? _But they didn't look enough alike to justify the last assumption. A friend perhaps, if Hope's guess about Lightning having some history with the Patron and his cohorts were true. Lebreau's earlier sting hinted as much. _"She's still with us... Unlike _some _people I could mention."_

Lightning turned to look down at Hope, running her eyes over the wound on his arm, the bruises along his wrists and shoulders. He wondered if he looked as miserable as he felt. It would certainly explain why Lightning looked at him with such pitying, sad eyes half the time.

"Hope, I – " she began, only to cut herself off, before digging her teeth into her bottom lip and biting down hard. An apology was on the edge of her tongue, its sincerity shining out of her pale eyes, but the words wouldn't leave the knot inside her throat.

She soon turned to look at Vanille instead, her pale rose hair falling over her shoulder and obscuring her expression from Hope's view. "... I don't mind healing him again," Lightning said. "They wouldn't let me do that on the way over here, or I would have gotten it out of the way sooner."

Vanille considered this. "They wanted you to conserve your strength," she said. "You've had a rough day, haven't you? And your Artes aren't really focused on healing, if I remember correctly."

Lightning reached out to try straightening the blankets under Hope again. "I've done it before," she said, sounding strangely bashful. "It doesn't take much out of me." Her face hardened in an instant, and her tone followed suit. "They know that, too. Gadot and Lebreau, and all the other strays Snow's got working for him now. Seems more likely they were just trying to piss me off."

Vanille sighed, tilted her head, and regarded Lightning with a stare that cut through the mask the other woman had put into place. "I can't say I agree with that, but... if it's how you feel, then you should take it up with them." She gestured at Hope, never once addressing him personally. "Right now I need to get to work."

Lightning nodded once, and shifted her eyes onto Hope. Brushing her hair over her shoulder with a tense hand that soon became a fist, she offered him a comforting smile. "You must be getting tired of this," she said.

"Not much I could do to stop it, even if I were," he said. Hope indulged in looking at her face to help replace the fear the dream version of her had instilled within him. _She was broken then, half rotten and weeping – but she's fine now. She's fine here. Just like you remembered. Just like you knew her to be._

"Do you trust her?" Hope asked, glancing at Vanille in a quick, wordless apology.

"I do, but – "

Hope nodded, turning his eyes back to Lightning. "Then I'll be fine. Don't worry, Light. It'll give you a break from having to play nurse – and you must be getting tired of _that_."

"I said I didn't mind," Lightning pointed out. "You're... important to me, Hope. Partners have to be important to each other."

"_To me, you are more precious than gold and more fragile than glass." _Hope shivered as the dream whispered to him louder than what was happening in the room right now.

Vanille noticed this with a wan expression. She said, "If you don't mind, Lightning, I'd like to take care of Hope now? And... I think the Patron wants to talk to you."

That drew Lightning's attention. Her shoulders slumped, not from exhaustion but a low slope that made her posture tighten up. She snapped to attention and said, "Yeah? Well good. I've got a few things to say to him, too."

Vanille's lips twitched as she fought a smile. "As long as you two remember to keep it civil – and keep it _down_. Noise carries here in this part of the Palace."

"It's the ceilings," Hope offered, pointing up above.

Lightning ignored this, taking steady but slow steps towards the door Lebreau and Gadot had left open. "Can't make any promises,"she said to Vanille, throwing the words over her shoulder. "I'll play nice if he does."

"Lightning, _really_. I meant it," Vanille sighed.

"Don't worry, I heard you." Lightning turned once she had crossed through the door, taking hold of the handle and slipping her fingers around its polished, curved edge. Her gaze moved from Hope's body on the bed to the patient, waiting figure Vanille cut at the side of his bed, standing sentinel where Lightning had been only seconds ago. "… Take care of him," she said, and closed the door before Vanille could respond.

"He's in good hands... Oh, she's gone already." Vanille sighed once more and pulled a face. "I don't know why she's so grumpy. We're just trying to help..."

Hope caught her stare, a sudden, curious glance that he often saw those with secrets give to those they knew a secret about. He couldn't be bothered by this, if the hunch proved true. _Lots of weird women seem to know more about me than I do this week. There's a trend going on apparently._

"That's the second time today people have talked about me like I wasn't here," he said.

"Really? What was the first?"

Thinking back to his encounter with Yeul, Caius, and Noel in the pale room full of veils and crystals and confusing revelations, Hope figured it might be the best to keep that particular fact close to his chest. She was here to fix the damage on his body, and couldn't be tasked with trying to patch up whatever damage his mind had endured. "... You know what? Never mind. This has to be the first. I don't even know if the other one actually happened."

Hope was glad that he'd withheld most of the truth from her, considering how she reacted next. Vanille tilted her head again to eye him closely, her expression suggesting she had no idea what the hell he meant. "Have you suffered any serious head trauma recently?" she asked, as gently as she could phrase such a personal question.

Hope worked very hard to keep himself from laughing. "You could say that," he said.

"Would you mind telling me about it?" Vanille asked.

"My parents and I were in a car accident. They... We died a few days ago. It didn't take. Not for me, anyway."

Vanille made a move as if to reach out to offer him her hand, but she pulled her hand back at the last moment, and used it to brush a strand of hair behind her ears instead. "Didn't stay dead... Hmm," she muttered to herself. "That sounds like Snow."

"The Patron?" Hope asked.

Vanille nodded, brightening again. "Yup. Lightning always used to say how he was too stubborn to die – looks like you are, too."

"Thanks, I think."

"It's a good trait to have," Vanille insisted. "Far better than the alternative. Wouldn't you say?"

Such a little question had opened up an awful chain of events that Hope didn't think Vanille anticipated. Little though he enjoyed it, Hope's mind turned once again to the most recent dream he had after the morgue had been turned upside down. His mind's eye flooded with the image of the haunted-looking Lightning, spouting cryptic comforts meant to address his buried, brutal woes.

"_I didn't die. And that's not much at all."_

"_It's more than most people manage. Don't underrate how important it is to be a survivor, Hope. Especially not with the hand you've been dealt."_

"Is there something you know about my life that I don't?" Hope asked Vanille, repeating the question from his dream.

"I can't say that I know you _personally_," Vanille began. "But I do know quite a bit about what you're going through. Both you and Lightning, though I don't think she'd be happy to hear that."

"Why not?"

"Lightning and I... we have a bit of complicated history. Same for her and the Patron."

_What kind of history? _Hope wanted to ask, but he found himself asking instead: "And what's that got to do with me?"

Vanille's jaw dropped as she prepared herself to respond – but just as she did, the words failed her. Her eyebrows furrowed over into a worried crease as she frowned, bit her lip, and tried again.

"I... I thought I knew," she said, half to herself, in a tone lower than whisper. "I could have sworn I knew it this morning." Her eyes turned to Hope, brimming with a fright he didn't know how to ease. "It's like I've forgotten it – like someone's stolen the memory right out from under me... But I remember enough to know there's _something_ to remember. How... does that make any sense?"

_It doesn't. _"I don't think I can help you with that, Vanille," Hope said. "Have _you _had any head trauma lately?"

"No, I've been perfectly fine," Vanille said, not catching his sarcasm. "I don't understand. Hope... why would someone want to steal a memory about you?"

"_How _could they is the better question to ask," Hope offered. "I don't know anyone with that kind of power. Do you?"

"Of course not."

"Then we should probably ask the Patron, once Lightning's through with him."

"Yes... That's a good point. He may know." But her tone didn't sound like she was too convinced. Vanille took a long breath, steeling herself by throwing back her shoulders and adopting a posture similar to a soldier entering a hopeless war. _Just like Lightning, before she left. _"Right, then. I'll worry about it later. 'Til then, let's get you patched up. You can't go facing Lord Snow looking like you were mauled by a Pantheron."

"Sure, right," Hope said, because it was easier to agree than to ask what the hell a Pantheronwas. He closed his eyes as Vanille approached the bed, and waited for her to work her magic. _What did she call it? An Arte? _Whatever it was, at least she could help fix his body. What did it matter if there was some kind of irreparable damage in the mind?

An orange light like a roaring flame burst up on the other side of Hope's eyes, reminding him of the rose light and the pale green glow that appeared when he and Lightning had transformed. This light had none of the tenderness of Vanille's personality: it came with a faint prickle, like a torn nail running across a wound light enough to annoy, but hard enough to threaten to drive the wound deeper. What kind of secrets did Vanille have inside, and how much did it tangle her history with Lightning, the Patron, and his band of gun-toting friends? _Is she a Guardian, too?_

If she was, Hope pitied her. She would know about his pain on a cruel scale that only personal experience could teach. _Same with Lightning, too. _A body that could be healed from any damage or pain, even death, possessing a mind that could only rot further and deeper. Is that what it meant to be a Guardian of Chaos? _Is that why God is laughing at _me?

_I'll get him to shut up eventually, _Hope vowed to himself, silently. He was starting to believe that the best vows were made without words at all, carved into every bleeding corner of your own heart._ Even if it goes against that useless contract the Primarch set up for me, I'll find a way to knock that smile right off of His face. Hopefully knock out a few teeth, too._


	9. Chapter 9 - Darkness Consumes

**Notes: **Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed so far! Your comments and little bits of insight really make me smile and give me encouragement to keep going~

Next chapter is going to start taking the story into another level, and I can't wait to see what you'll all make of it. All I'll say is it's a good thing Hope and Lightning have each other to cling to, heh.

* * *

**Chapter 9 – **Darkness Consumes, So Find Your Hope and Keep It Close

Unlike when Lightning had healed him in the hospital, Hope noticed right away that Vanille's restorative touch seemed to bring with it a few unexpected consequences. His brain felt as if it had popped out of the seams of his skull, becoming an airy, weightless thing drifting further and further up towards the ceiling, carrying with it all his thoughts and ability to think clearly. This buoyancy thrilled him more than it terrified, and for the first time since he was a young child, he actually heard himself _giggling _at the process.

"The room's... getting taller," Hope said, surprised to see his hand decide to lift up off the bed (which he couldn't feel beneath him anymore). It tried in vain to grasp the ceiling, upon which his thoughts sat hunched in a corner, gathering closer into a knotted web. "Does this happen a lot?"

Vanille's answer came as if from the other end of a hallway, casting echoes of her gentle, accented voice back to where Hope lay, half-convalescing and amazed. "Must be a side effect of the Arte. I tried to focus on peace of mind while I was helping you, but I might have overdone it." She hooked her fingers into a strange net, weaving every finger between the space of every other, creating a cradle that she closed up by pressing her thumbs along the tangle. "Fang said it made her feel like she'd had a year's supply of Bacchus Brew all in one go, then she passed out for about two days."

"That won't happen to me," Hope vowed, forcing every word to fall down from where his brain was stored so that it could crawl out again from his throat and his open, dry mouth. _Dying felt a little like this, _he thought, a miraculous bit of multi-tasking considering the state he was in._ Like parts of me were wandering off and I had to draw them back before they crawled out of reach forever._ "I won't let it."

"Rest is important, especially after what you've been through," Vanille said.

Hope shook his head. It felt like eons passed with every twist, and his eyes moved across the ceiling as if watching the long, dark stretch of horizon that bordered around his life. All the days he had before him now, all the nights, all the hours and the meager rewards that brought seemed to be written on the ceiling, in letters strange and images unclear. "I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being... tired. I want to do something that matters for a change."

"You've been doing a lot, haven't you?" Vanille asked. "You and Lightning both got ride of the oblivion core already, and that's no small feat. You should be proud of yourself, Hope."

Despite the gentle tone and the smile Hope could so easily imagine spreading out across her lips, there was an undeniable air of discomfort to every word Vanille said. Hope had heard it before, in his own voice when faced with grief he had no power to stop; had heard it from his mother, ever time she smiled so sweetly and raised a shaking hand to cup the bruises on his stone-still cheeks. It was more of a plea, this tone, than anything else. _"Don't ask me to help you," _it said, _"not when I can barely help myself."_

"What are you doing?" Vanille asked, darting forward and grabbing on tight to Hope's shoulders, trying to force him back down onto the bed. "You shouldn't move! You're supposed to lie still, and – !"

"I _CAN'T_!" The words exploded out of Hope, snapping the line that tied his brain to where it'd nestled on the ceiling to his body, struggling to climb down off the bed and make some use of itself. "I _can't_ keep doing nothing, I can't keep stumbling forward and then crashing down so someone else can pick me up again. I can't keep sleeping, I can't keep dreaming – I can't... I can't do it anymore."

The hands on his shoulders tightened. He felt the edges of her nails dip in like little teeth, biting against his sweating skin, and it seemed as if her touch were scraping deeper down past the bone – but then the moment was gone, and so was her touch. As her touch receded, so did the warmth of her presence. Hope moved his eyes away from the ceiling and onto her face for the first time. It was wreathed in shadow, dark wisps that howled silently around her, pulling at her hair, tugging at the skirts of her gown, making them tremble. If Vanille noticed the darkness, she said nothing about it. Her eyes were fixed to the floor, her fingers still knotted, and her expression was an open wound of sorrow.

But only for a moment. "Things will get better, Hope. You'll see. I promise."

But they weren't getting better. Nothing around Hope was getting better in that moment, though the pain in his body was gone, there was an ache incurable, irremediable, reigning triumphant in his mind. He shook his head, sitting upright in the bed, and watched as the darkness drew closer to where the two of them stood. _Can't she see it? Isn't she afraid? _Hope couldn't let Vanille stand there without giving her some kind of warning for what lurked out of sight.

"... Vanille, there are shadows here – they're alive, and starving." Every dark wisp moved over her as if aching to touch and be touched. Hope tried to lift his hand up again and reach out for the shadows that tried to reach in, but the effort was too great, and his mind was too far above him to let the command fall through. As if sensing the action that failed before it began, the little coils of shadow began to edge away from Vanille, reaching out to wind their way around and between Hope's fingers. He almost smiled. It was a gentle, cool touch, as soothing as Lightning's had been.

When he looked up again, Vanille's eyes were on his hand. "You can see it, too?" she said, her smile fading into a half-hearted smirk. "They're always there for me, ever since I woke up... Even Fang can't make it stop. They're always just behind me, and right in front of every step I try to take. Nothing but darkness that lurks, edging closer."

_This is really happening, isn't it? This isn't a dream. _Hope wished he could pinch himself to be sure. "What is it?" he asked. "Who controls it?"

Vanille's shrug was the heaviest, saddest gesture. So helpless and resigned to it. "It controls itself," she said. "That's why it's called Chaos, Hope. It has no master and no order. No plan or goal... It just eats everything within its touch, even parts of its own self."

_Chaos. _Hope's mind shuddered, curling in tighter inside its knot. "She called me a Guardian of Chaos," he said, to himself, to Vanille, to the darkness that was winding like a thread around and around his arm, reaching up for his throat.

"Who did?" Vanille asked.

Hope watched as the Chaos relaxed against his arm, having perched its roots on his shoulder. It covered him like a sleeve. Where was his fear? Where was his anger? "The girl in the veil," he said. "Sad eyes. Dark hair. … Yeul. Her name was Yeul."

"But that's – " Her words failed and faded.

"... Vanille?"

She had her hands pressed over her eyes, the heels of her palms pushed down across the lids that were shut tight. Hope recognized the pain, even if she made no sound to give the hurt away. The darkness in the room seemed to expand in a long, silent gasp before it tightened around the two of them, blotting out the door behind Vanille and the torches on the walls until they were just vague, blurred images. Ink smears on canvas, about to be painted over and forgotten.

"It's happened again," she said. Where was _her _fear, _her _anger? Hope heard nothing but a grim surrender. _"I'm used to it," _she might as well have said. "There was a memory just waiting to come out but now it's... it's gone."

There were so many questions Hope could have asked. _Is it about me again? _would be up there, along with, _What do you know about me, Vanille? _Because it was plain to Hope that there was vital information stored away inside the woman's brain that would shed much-needed light on this awful nightmare. Instead he found himself sitting silent, frustrated that his mouth couldn't move and that the words would not stir from where they'd buried themselves in the corner of his mind. How would he ever get anywhere with this new life and all the trials ahead if he was at war with his own mind?

Vanille noticed nothing. Hope could not blame her. Not when she had her own mountain of toil to overcome.

"Have you ever felt that way, Hope?" she asked, staring at her hands, the faint lines that stretched across her palms. Life and heart and head lines being used as breadcrumb trails to sanity and reason. "Your mind puts a wall down between a thought so fast that it cuts you off half way. A part of you remembers, while the other part of you just stays confused."

That sounded familiar. "Maybe only once in a while, when I was stressed," Hope said. He thought it best to keep most of his current predicament to himself. He'd tell Lightning if she were here – they were partners. Their burdens were meant to be shared and cleared. But Vanille? A stranger, no matter how kind she might be, and a stranger clearly dealing with her own troubles that did not deserve his addition.

She frowned. "And you _aren't _stressed now?" she asked.

Hope looked up to see how far the Chaos climbed. It took him a few moments to realize that his body had fallen back down onto the bed, and the thin sticks of gray cutting up through the Chaos were his own legs, clad in the bottom half of the hospital uniform. "Right now I'm on the ceiling, Vanille. Nothing can get me up here." Hope shut his eyes, and the world dropped away except for the bed beneath him. _Reminds me of the morphine haze._

He thought he heard Vanille sigh. "... Right. Okay. I'll leave you to get some rest now."

Hope's eyes flew open, and he sprang up in bed as if released from a trap. "No, I don't want to rest. I can't, Vanille."

She either had unlimited patience or hid its lack well. Hope wanted to believe someone could be so unfailingly kind, though he wasn't sure what he'd done so far that warranted its arrival. "Then tell me what you want to do. There's really not much I can do for you until you figure that part out."

"There's no Arte for mind-reading?"

"Well there might be," Vanille teased, pretending to think about it. Hope enjoyed the pantomime. "But I don't think I'd like to use it on you, even if I knew how. Too invasive."

"Would the Patron know?" Hope asked.

"I don't think so," Vanille said, but Hope caught on to the way the sentence trailed off in the end. "He wouldn't want to do it either. It's not Snow's style."

"I want to see him. Lightning's there with him, right? Well you can take me there, too. Please."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Hope took in as much air as he could hold. There was a clamp around his chest, pressing down on his lungs and heart. Every breath was precious, scarce, and to be cherished. "I don't have any other option left. He has to know something about all this, right? He can't rule Eden and be completely ignorant about... about Chaos and being a Guardian, and making contracts with Dysley."

"You saw _Dysley_?" Vanille asked, but Hope wasn't listening. He was too focused on trying to climb down off the bed and stumble through the darkness that the Chaos had stretched around the entire room. After a pause, Vanille moved forward to help.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.

"The Patron. Lemme see him."

Vanille gave the sides of his shoulders a little pat, testing to see how much pressure he could take without bending under even this little bit of weight. "We'll have to get you fixed up first," she said, when the worst Hope did was sway. "A shower and some new clothes... We should have some extra left in one of the guest rooms."

_Do I want to know why people would leave their clothes behind at the Patron's house? _Hope tried to imagine various innocent scenarios in which this would be likely to happen, but he began and ended with _pool parties_, and that was just absurd.

After some confusion regarding basic motor functions ("If babies can figure out how to walk, so can I." "That's the spirit, Hope"), and the warm guidance of Vanille's hands fluttering from his back to his chest, Hope managed to move over from the bed to the shower in the next room. His mind was still bobbing around on the ceiling, where it watched him stumble, graceless and embarrassingly unaware of the range of his own limbs, towards the bathroom door.

"You'll be all right in there alone, won't you?" Vanille asked, in the sort of tone that let Hope know she had her own answer.

"How else do people shower?" he slurred. After a beat, the words caught up with him. _That might explain the mystery about the leftover clothes. _"Forget you heard that. Please."

"I'll... be close by. In case you need anything." Vanille, acting very much with Hope's request, waved at him and waited until he had cleared the doorway on his own two feet, plodding across the ice blue tiles.

Hope shoved the door shut behind him, an angry snap that was more for the satisfaction of the sound than any display of emotion. There was nothing like anger inside of Hope now: he was somehow heavy and weightless at the same time. The clamp still on his chest, and his mind still trailing far behind his every step, Hope existed in an interstice that turned his thoughts once again to Yeul.

_Vanille knows something. _Or at the very least, Vanille _might _have once known something, considering the fact that her mind seemed to be eating at its own memories. How did that work? And why did it work at all? The only explanation Hope could think of was some kind of defense mechanism, a process of self-cannibalization to prevent the wrong information from leaking out – but why the hell would someone have such a power, to say nothing of what could be so bad that they'd have to erase it from their own mind?

At the very least he knew now that his meeting with Yeul hadn't been a dream. Though he doubted that he could have made up such varied, bizarre people out of his own imagination – which wasn't as fertile a field as it might have been, focused as he was on reason and logic and everything that could be dissected and studied under a microscope – Hope hadn't been entirely convinced that the trio were real people until Vanille's little slip. The next question, of course, was how did Vanille know them?

_Maybe they worked for the Patron at one point in time. And maybe they left him, "went rogue," like Lightning did._

Though the next question to ask was _why?_

"I don't like this," Hope said, groping behind him for the light switch, splaying his hand flat against the wall and feeling for the little plastic case. "I don't like this. I don't like not knowing." Powerless and stupid and constantly chasing after the smallest traces of answer – what kind of life was that? What sort of person could be satisfied with that kind of existence? Getting lost in the darkness, the Chaos, must be like that. Being the Guardian of Chaos must be like that twice as much.

"_That's why it's called Chaos, Hope. It has no master and no order. No plan or goal... It just eats everything within its touch, even parts of its own self."_

He was just a little wind-up bird, wandering beyond the limits of the spring inside each leg. Hope could imagine this perfectly, the picture coming to mind just as his fingers found the switch and flicked the light on. _Every step was a wonder, every act a miracle. _Hope did his best to focus on these little positives until he raised his eyes to the mirror stretched over a low sink.

Hope saw himself for the first time since the hospital, his horrified eyes looking back at the wreckage that was his face and body. For a long, cruel moment, Hope could think of nothing else. Certainly nothing comforting.

Finally, he started to laugh.

"I look like shit," he said once the laughter was finished. And it was the truth, as vulgar and rough as that might be. He understood without a doubt why Lightning had been so hellbent on staying by his side, at why Vanille had kept her eyes so carefully fixed at a polite, safe spot away from the damage he had become.

His body was bruised and battered, decorated with blood that had dried and become little more than the flaking aftermath of rust. It was the bruises that troubled him the most: they looked like tar spills beneath his skin, warped and distorted shapes that overlapped and bent around each other, as if the aches sought to unite.

Hope stepped out of what was left of his clothes and turned his eyes away from the mirror. _Don't think about it now_, he said, so loudly that he was sure it might even be a scream, but no sound left his pursed mouth full of clenched, grinding teeth. _Don't think about it now, don't think about it now. Don't think, not now._ He walked over to the glass case of the shower and shut the door behind him, staring down at his bare feet among the pale tiles. He almost wanted to apologize for standing there, mucking up what was, until now, so pristine and bright.

Such thoughts were an oppressive, dark cloud, their own little smothering Chaos, that kept Hope captive for a full minute. He reached out to grasp the silver knobs and twisted without thinking, getting a face full of ice cold water that made him flinch, only to have him hiss and curse wildly when it was replaced by a scalding boil. _Don't think about it now, _Hope told himself, only to have the credo accompanied by a memory from earlier in the day.

"_Take whatever's hurting you and turn it into something useful. Don't give in to your own weakness_."

Had Lightning really only said that to him just hours ago? It felt far longer than that – years would be an overstatement, but it seemed with every passing hour, Hope aged further and further beyond the young man he'd once been. He certainly wasn't the same Hope that had woken up to an explosion of glass and pale pink light, while demons crowded around his hospital door. Nor was he any longer the Hope that had cut a bloody swathe through those same monsters, stumbling along behind Lightning, looking for a chance to understand and share the weight of this new-found, awful burden.

Hope had to follow her advice. He couldn't do anything else – he wouldn't allow it. If he had energy to waste on feeling miserable, then he had energy to start taking care of himself, little by little, no matter how long it took. _I'll find a way to thank her for it later._

Standing beneath the newly adjusted stream of water, hot enough to make his skin turn pink beneath the bruises and dirt, Hope closed his eyes and lost himself in the new source of warmth. He counted backwards from ten, and then started to claw at the rusted flakes of blood on his hands and wrists before picking up a brush and letting its bristle bite do the rest. The bar of soap waiting in a dish next to where the brush had been, was as pristine as the ties beneath his feet had been. Hope watched the grime slough off him in little waves, running down his skin and into little spirals that wreathed the bright silver drain.

The soap in his hands soon turned into a nub of its former self as he dragged it across his forehead and neck, around the back of his shoulders and across his thin, aching chest. The ribs seemed to pop as he arched his back, putting him in mind of bars and cages, the casings of a prison. Steam clouded his vision, blotting out everything else in the room except Hope's view of himself. It was the color opposite of the cloud of Chaos that had loomed over his bed and around Vanille's back. Hope could see just a few wisps of the darkness trying to break through the white cloud surrounding him now, but he lowered his eyes every time the shadows appeared.

Hope hated to think that such a hateful thing as an all-devouring, conscienceless shadow was something he had to not only defend, but now had to live with as a constant, lurking companion. How long had Vanille lived this way, and who else shared her fate? Did the Patron, and Lebreau and Gadot, too? _What about Lightning? _She had said nothing about Chaos the way Vanille had, apart from a comment about what the oblivion cores were capable of doing. _"__They rip out order and replace it with pure chaos." _But that answer provided only more questions in its place, and it didn't seem to be the same thing as an ever-present darkness that could sink lower without provocation or cause.

And how the hell were they supposed to beat something like _that_? How could anyone be expected to fight off and defeat a shadow that could be everywhere, wherever it pleased, capable of deeds that ranged from merely annoying to purely destructive? Hope thought about the decision he made earlier in the day, after Lightning had admitted they were partners in the hospital stairwell, that fighting wasn't just about protecting or destroying, but _winning_, having a goal in mind to reach for, no matter the cost or pain. What could Hope or _any _of the other Guardians for that matter realistically hope to achieve when up against a force like this? Not dying? Simply _surviving_ from day to day? Death would be better than such a joyless life.

The thought made Hope cringe. _Don't think about it now. Don't think about it. Face it later._

With a tremendous effort, Hope began to turn his attention to his body instead. The contrast of dark prodding and poking throughout his pale skin reminded him of the tattoo-like veins he'd worn during his first transformation at the hospital. _Is that my Arte? _Hope wondered, breaking what was left of the soap into miserable little chunks and watching it fall through the steam to the tiled floor. _Turning wounds and corruption into strength? _He sincerely wished this were true. Hope might not be able to heal the way that Lightning and Vanille could, and maybe he couldn't fight as carefully and gracefully as Lightning without delving too far into a violence that scared even _her_, but he could try to be as useful as possible.

_I won't be a burden or a victim. I'll be a survivor. _The conviction burned inside him in the space below his heart, like flames licking the inside of his ribs. It hurt, but it was a pain that Hope could endure if it meant he had some small shred of hope to keep close.

Maybe, if having an Arte gave a person some kind of magical priority, Hope's power as a Guardian meant he could take the will that burned him alive inside and turn it into something tangible, like a force that could cut down as well as it could protect, depending on how he channeled it. _Maybe I can actually fight now, to make up for all the times I couldn't. _Hope had never raised a hand against anyone in his life, not for defense, not for the brief protection that his folded arms might make as a shield – not when it would have helped him the most, before age and shame seemed to mellow out the worst of his father's temper. It seemed inappropriate to defend himself during the man's tearful pleas for forgiveness, which were more damaging to Hope's heart than any cruel word or fist. And nothing could keep a heart safe, besides locking it so far away where nothing might reach it, and that included trust and hope and happiness.

_That's just an excuse to make yourself feel better. _The water trickled down his head and neck, plastering Hope's pale silver hair to his scalp. He saw its distorted reflection in the metal of the knobs and pole leading up to the shower head, stretching him out to a face whose mouth was a compressed knot, and whose pale green eyes were pitifully wide and gaping, a stare unending and hardly capable of understanding.

"I've heard something like that before," Hope said, scrubbing his face with his wet hands, dragging his nails lightly down from the crown of his head to his chin, agitating the skin.

The answer came to him when he left the shower, dripping and sullen, reaching for a pale blue towel whose edges were embroidered with red roses. His fingers grazed the edges of a fully bloomed rose, when the thought struck him like a bolt. _A phantom told me, a phantom with eyes like the sea and hair like roses. _That's right. He'd had a dream about Lightning, or someone like her, any way. How could he have forgotten? It had only just happened, though to be fair, imagined conversations did pale in comparison to being shot in the arm and carried off to a politician's house.

The dream Lightning's voice flooded Hope's thoughts as he dried himself off, forming a misshapen puddle on the cold bathroom floor. _"There are so many ways to kill someone you love, Hope, and call it kindness instead."_

Little else about the dream had made sense besides that phrase, but Hope wasn't in the habit of analyzing such things. Before he died and made acquaintances with phantoms, Yeul, and her two bodyguards, Hope never had anything like these dreams. He'd read once that this was impossible, that everyone dreamed every night and it was just a matter of whether they remembered or not, but Hope didn't know how true this was. He was too busy feeling grateful that his mind never saw fit to dredge up images and sequences that would only haunt him further than his waking hours did already.

But he could use that excuse no longer. He was seeing these things, going to these places, and living these dreams for a reason. What that might be, Hope had no idea – but he'd find his own in the meantime, until another one emerged at the end of all this struggle. If Hope had to keep having these dreams, these visions of other worlds and the people who seemed content to stay trapped in them, then the least he could do was learn from them.

Wrapping the towel around his reed-thin waist, well aware of how gaunt he had become over the months of studying relentlessly with little sustenance besides coffee and instant food, Hope opened the bathroom door and peered out. The Infirmary was silent, and he could hear nothing in the distance to indicate someone was just out of sight. Only a few natural shadows occupied the room; all the Chaos had left with Vanille's disappearance, though Hope could see some straggling wisps darting about between the light, as if trying to weave itself back into a whole.

"Vanille?" he called into the silence, pulling himself back from where his mind lurked on the ceiling. The giddiness her healing Arte had thrown over him was mostly gone now, either due to the sinking thoughts that pervaded Hope throughout his shower, or the strange fortifying powers of the shower itself. He could stand without wavering, and he could think as clearly as the situation would allow.

Holding onto the edge of the towel, Hope crossed over the mostly bare room until he was back near the bed, not entirely sure what to do next. A knock interrupted his thoughts, soon followed by a familiar voice that made his heart swell.

"Hope? You in there?"

The effect of her voice was immediate. He was at the door and had pulled it open without thinking of the consequences.

Lightning's eye level was on Hope's chest, and she blinked once before taking a step back and tilting her head up to catch his eyes. There was a little flush of pink to her cheeks, and he felt like apologizing – making her uncomfortable ranked quite high on the list of things he would never want to do, ever – but before he could get the words out, she was talking again.

"Brought you some clothes," she muttered, shoving them into Hope's chest.

Hope held the neatly folded assortment of clothes against his heart, wondering why it was pounding so fast. "Uh, thanks. How did you know?"

"Ran into Vanille on my way back here. Something came up, and she asked if I could bring this in for you."

"Thanks," Hope said again, stepping back and nudging the door open wider with his shoulder. "What happened? Is everything all right?"

Lightning waited until he had walked closer to the bathroom door before she followed him into the room, making a direct line for the nearest piece of furniture she could lean on. This turned out to be a stand next to the Infirmary's bed. Hope watched her fold her arms and keep her back to the bathroom door just as he wedged it over enough to keep a sliver open, and allow her voice to seep through.

"Emergency meeting of the Conseil," she said. "And we're cordially invited."

Hope cast off the towel and hung it back up on the silver rack from which he'd nabbed it. "That's good," he called out, unfolding the pants first and shaking them out. They were of a similar deep, dark blue like the uniforms he'd seen on Lebreau and Gadot, and he thought it strange that they should fit him so well, as if tailored to do so. The shirt was nondescript: white, button down, with a collar that went high enough to hide most of Hope's neck. A suit jacket accompanied the ensemble, and Hope considered putting it on until he noticed the smudged, barely legible words written on the tag just inside the jacket's collar: .._op Est..._

"You've obviously never been to a Conseil meeting before," Lightning muttered. "Mostly it's just the two sides arguing before Vanille or Snow step in to calm everyone down and get them back on track. Big waste of time, very little getting done, and a lot of self-congratulatory garbage. But... it might be worth a look this time."

Hope ran his thumb over the words on the tag, smearing the name until it was illegible. "What's the point of the Conseil if they just spend all their time arguing?" he asked, sliding his arms through the jacket's sleeves and ignoring the shaking in his hands. He had to be seeing things. It didn't mean anything, really. Just like the shades of his parents that haunted him in the hours after the accident, this could be just another trick, just another way to burden Hope with guilt.

Any reason would be better than the likeliest possibility, especially to a mind already so overladen with fear.

Lightning's voice guided Hope back into the Infirmary, like a line drawing in the catch its bait had caught. "If Vanille were here, she'd probably tell you it's about working together for a common goal, even if we're afraid and can't always agree. That's the line she used on me before I left. There's two layers: the Left Tier and the Right," Lightning said. "I used to be in the Left, which deals with more of the meeting and strategy approach to governing Eden. Lebreau and Gadot are in the Right Tier, along with a few other friends Snow knew before becoming Patron. Most of his buddies make up that side, which actually goes out to play crowd control."

Hope could hear the disdain in Lightning's voice, and had long come to recognize the shifts in her body language. _It's like I've always known them. _"Do you think they're unfit for the job?"

"It's not their responsibility, and it's definitely not their place. They're not like us – they're just... normal people. Not Guardians. Not anything, really." Lightning folded her arms and took a peek over her shoulder, assessing Hope's outfit. "I'm glad it fits. At least one thing went right today."

Hope wanted to scream. Instead he asked, "They didn't make a contract?"

Lightning turned to face him. "No, but they're not in the dark about it either. Snow trusts them with his life. Too bad they can't be trusted to take care of others. … Not like we can."

"How did Snow even meet them?" Hope asked, wanting desperately to get away from the lingering unease of the uniform and the words printed inside. His eyes darted up to the lights, curious to see if the shadows of the Chaos still lurked. He could see barely a wisp of the once crowding darkness, but that did little to calm Hope down. _Vanille said it was always just behind her, or lurking in front of every step she had to take. It's always there, it's always going to be there, and there's nothing I can do to get out of its reach._

"They were brought up together in an orphanage. Made a group called NORA, once they were old enough to put all their stupid hero beliefs into practice. They even use it now as a way to keep themselves feeling important." She twisted her face into a rude expression and spat out, "'_NORA's always in the Right!' _Pathetic." The acid in Lightning's tone was so corrosive it may as well have burned a bitter hole through her throat.

Hope made his hands into fists, chewing hard on the inside of his cheek. He tasted blood. "NORA?" he repeated, blood pounding through his head. For a second he thought he saw her again, the bloody, broken mess that his mother had become. She was standing just behind Lightning, next to the bed he had only recently left. The smile was marred by the cuts and blood that would never heal, and her eyes were bruises, full of a pitying pride that made Hope dangerously close to screaming.

"I never got a chance to ask them what it meant – I don't think I want to know," Lightning said, before she pulled her eyes from where she'd kept them pinned to the space between her and Hope, and brought her gaze up to his face. "What's wrong? Hope?"

Just as Hope had responded immediately to the sound of her voice, moving without thinking to the door and pulling it open so that he might see her face again, Lightning responded to the agony buried beneath his expression as if the root lay inside her own heart. Her hands unwound from their place on her arms and reached up, one grasping onto his shoulder in a tighter, warmer hold that Vanille's had been, while the other stretched its fingers to brush over his face. Hope flinched back from her touch, but stopped himself before he could move out of her reach completely. _She's going through all this, too. She's all you have – and the same goes for you, for her. _The phantom Lightning from his dream haunted him for a long, quiet moment, and then Hope brought up one of his hands to cup the back of hers, and hold it against his face.

Very lightly, her touch so soft Hope could barely feel it, Lightning ran her thumb across his cheek as if to wipe away tears that wouldn't come. "Talk to me, Hope. You have to tell me what's wrong so I can try to fix it. I can't help you if I don't know what help you need."

His voice was a hushed, shivering little thing when Hope spoke again. "… Lightning, have we met before?"

"Is that some kind of joke?" she asked, forcing a laugh. But it died out fast, and her face shifted from a half-hearted attempt to change the tone into an expression of genuine surprise.

Hope held on tighter to the hand she had cupped against his face. The hand she planted on his shoulder gripped down tighter, and he soon brought his free hand to rest on the back of that one, too. Anything to keep her closer, anything to keep the warmth against his skin, to fight off the chill that was bleeding out from the dark hole his heart had become. "It's a kind of question. Have we met before?"

Lightning looked him square in the eyes, never blinking, never wavering. Moonlight broke through the window to Hope's right, putting half her face in sudden shadow. _Like the Phantom, _he thought, shrinking back again. But this time Lightning wouldn't let him step back any further. Her voice had gone as quiet as a whisper from a far off breeze, but the words forced themselves through the panic that flooded Hope's every thought. "So you remember me. I was... Would you believe me if I said I was scared you would, and scared you wouldn't?"

_I remember a half-shadowed face in a dream, rotten away by despair and telling me the reason God laughs__. _"That all depends on why you'd be afraid in the first place," he said.

Her smile was a vulnerable little thing Hope wanted to protect. "Do you believe in fate at all?" she asked. Just another question to add on to the pile of confusion. _Maybe that's all life ever is - maybe the point is you keep asking, instead of waiting for an answer._

What came out of Hope's mouth next was a truth unvarished and pure, and the closest thing he'd ever gotten to baring his heart to another person. "If I hadn't met you, Light, I would have said no. If I never woke up in that hospital room and saw you sitting there next to me, I never would have thought for a second there could be anything like fate at work in the world." _But that isn't really comforting to think about, _Hope couldn't bring himself to add out loud. He held on tighter to Lightning's hands and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. He shut his eyes and listened to her little gasp of surprise before it sank into the regular, even melody of her breathing.

_If I hadn't met you, I never would have known a thing about these monsters or Guardians, never would have believed in fate or Chaos – and I wouldn't have started with these dreams, either. I can't blame you for it... but I can't thank you, either._ But the important thing Hope clung to, the one thing he repeated to himself as he took in a long breath, preparing himself to speak again, is that Lightning was in no way at fault for the path his life had taken. Hope had signed the contract, Hope had been the one to make the choice – Lightning was nothing but a fellow sufferer, a _survivor_, just like him. He could either choose to trust her, and shelve all the other doubts that tried to cloud their bond, or he could be petty and fight alone.

_Never. We're partners, and I won't let her down._

"I know there's something else, something strange going on here that I can't really put my finger on… I guess I'd have to call it fate, or some kind of higher power. But I don't like the sound of that. It sounds like some excuse, you know? To get rid of responsibility." Hope sighed, and opened his eyes to see Lightning's eyes searching his face. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. He bent his forehead against hers, taking comfort from the contact. "I don't know a damn thing, Light. And I hate not knowing. Makes all those years and student loans feel like a huge waste," he laughed.

Lightning moved her hand out from under his and placed it on his other cheek. "Remember what I told you? You have to learn from these kind of things, Hope. Take everything that hurts and turn it into something useful."

Hope nodded. "I remember, Light. I'll remember everything you tell me. I might not know what to do, or why any of this has to happen but… all I know is that I believe in you."

_Too bad I don't know why, either._It couldn't just be because a raven-haired, sad-eyed girl implored that he do so over a warm cup of tea and a curious half-real, half-dream conversation. It couldn't just be because Hope, in the uncheatable corner of his heart, had to admit that as much as he had shifted into the sterile, unnecessarily stressful realm of adulthood, he still needed someone to lean on. He still needed someone to act as warmth and guidance and courage, if only to help him find those features in his own self.

And maybe being an adult wasn't about doing away with such a need, but finding the best way to harness it. And maybe being a Guardian meant you had to do more than fight on, and fight endlessly – the word _guard _couldn't be in the title for nothing, after all.

The only way Hope would get an answer to that was by learning from the others. Not just Lightning, but Vanille as well, and the Patron, and whatever other allies he had in his Conseil._It's not like any one of us is fighting alone, after all. And we'll always be fighting, won't we? All of us, together. _Because if there was one thing Hope could be sure about, drawing from what he understood about his life before the contract, a life as a bookish, overlooked graduate student, it was that this world stood in no short supply of hardships. With every coming day a new chance for happiness and despair was born, sometimes from the very same soil and seed of chance. One couldn't often rely on wishes to come true, but they could count on the fact that trouble would return, and bring with it more sorrow and monstrosity. It would not rest until it had exhausted itself of all the energy it possessed, a poisonous and cruel power that both sustained and categorized its very life.

And that went double for the lives he, Lightning, and the other Guardians had to live in the wake of their contracts. But if despair was never-ending, yet ever changing, then so too was hope.

Maybe it was time Hope started to learn how to believe in something else besides disappointment.

"Light, I -"

Hope wanted to say something about this silent conviction resting inside the bruised folds of his heart, but his efforts were blocked by the delightful intrusion of her lips closing around his. It was their first kiss – it had to be, it must, it _was._

_So why do I feel like we've done this dozens of times before? _Hope wondered as he cupped the back of Lightning's head in his hands, slid his fingers through her hair, and kissed her harder in return.


	10. Chapter 10 - Abyss of the Heart

**Chapter 10** – Abyss of the Heart

The heat of their kiss was still on Hope's lips long after they both decided to stop. It wasn't an immediate process, the and it didn't come easy – when one broke off for air, the other would lay a series of light kisses on their forehead, cheek, or neck. A process of waiting eagerly, and trying desperately not to be, as you got back what you first gave. Though the caresses themselves died down, the ardor did not fade. Hope knew the fire in his eyes was mirrored in Lightning's gaze, and though their shared, furious spark could not be denied, Hope felt his heart clench at the thought of Lightning's own. It was a blaze he could not match, and had lied to supplement the lack.

_She thinks I remember her. She's kissing the me she thinks has awakened. _The guilt sank his passion like a stone, and soon Hope could barely bring himself to do more than hold her in his arms and wait until she noticed the lie staining his skin. _Why did I do it? Why did I lie and hold her? Why did I have to touch her at all? _Not because she was there – that was cruel, unkind, and far from true. Because he admired her – he admired her courage and her fear, the way she could turn one into the other and step forward, onwards, always. Because he liked what he saw of her heart, what little she had seen fit to share with him. Because in the dreams he had, whenever she was a subject or a presence, he felt his bones ache as if torn off from a greater, utterly necessary whole. He was complete in himself, but he was not _content_ – that could only be felt when she was close by.

But did that make him weak, or did it just mean that he...?

Lightning tolerated these little bits of tenderness longer than Hope expected her to, but then she shrugged gently out of his arms and composed herself with an effort that felt largely reluctant, forced and pained. "We should get going," she said, as much to Hope as to herself. "We've got that debriefing with the Conseil, remember?"

"I didn't forget," Hope said. His arms suddenly felt conspicuous, like awkward pendulums dangling out of his shoulder sockets. He didn't know what to do with his hands. "I've never been to a meeting more important than a thesis proposal before," he continued, offering a lighter tone and a smile, seeking her own. "At least... I don't remember any."

Lightning sized him up with a careful smirk. "Getting nervous?"

"I wouldn't call it nervous," Hope said, shaking his head. "More like interest."

"You'll get sick of it pretty quickly – or maybe the memories will come back before then, and you'll remember what it's like."

"Will the Patron be there?"

"He shouldn't be," Lightning said, folding her arms over her chest and glancing at the floor. "He didn't seem to be very... focused when I saw him just now."

"Focused how?" Hope didn't know what the weight in her pauses meant, but he knew there was a significance he was missing.

Lightning's grips on her arms tightened. "... Hope. You _do _remember me, don't you?"

The cage of Hope's lie, however well-intentioned, was starting to swing shut. He chose his answer quickly, in a panic. "I said I did. Don't you believe me?"

"No, no that won't work." Lightning shook her head harder, stepping forward and around Hope as she walked towards the door. He didn't know what to do besides follow. "You don't get to ask me that."

"Well... what exactly are you hoping that I remember? Let's start with that." The lie was growing thicker, falling harder. He hated how easy it was to maintain the even tone and the comforting combination of words. _But I don't want to hurt her – the opposite. I want to help._

"That won't work either," she scoffed, stomping out of the door and not pausing to see if Hope followed. "How can you rely on someone else to give you back your own memories?"

Hope managed to slip out of the door before it swung shut in his face. "... Are you saying that I can't trust you?" he asked, uneasy at the thought. _Now you know how it feels, Hope, _the part of his heart that couldn't be fooled said, as derisive and honest as ever.

"I'm saying that this is the one thing I _can't _help you with. We fight together, we even share a contract – but your memories and your mind are all your own. Just like mine are for me." She turned on her heel, a quick snap that traveled up her legs and made her twist around to face him. Hope stuttered to a halt, almost colliding into her – and he had the impression that would result in disaster. Eyes that bore the weight of unshed tears moved from Hope's empty stare to the moonlight filtering in through the tinted glass. "I've had to do this before, and it's never easy. I never like it. I always come off sounding like a liar... But there's no way in hell I'd ever trick you, Hope."

A knife to the heart would have hurt less than that remark. But Hope would smile, and he would carve those words into his memory as well as the way she blushed, ever so slightly, upon saying them. He'd remember this moment, and how little he deserved such an honest display. "Does the Conseil make you hang out with amnesiacs often?" he asked, because a joke was all he could manage to say without hating himself more than he did.

Lightning chuckled. "Nice one," she teased, stepping around him so that they could walk almost side by side down the hall. "No, if the Conseil had their way they'd just make me into some two-faced Patron postergirl. They know better now – but it doesn't mean they still won't try to strong arm _you_. So... be careful."

_That's how you look out for someone, _Hope thought, a dark thought intruding and almost forcing a laugh out of his smirking mouth. _You tell them the truth and you show concern. What good's a lie, even if you do it to make someone happy?_

_Because sometimes the lie isn't the important part. Sometimes it's how you act after the lie that matters more. _From the rotten depths of memory, cloudy though parts of his life had become since the accident, that awful dividing line between who he was and who he was starting to become, Hope remembered all the lies his mother told to get him to smile. _Your father loves you. It won't always be so bad. We'll just have to pretend, Hope. That's what we'll do – we'll just have to pretend until we can leave. _But she had never tried to leave; no effort was made that Hope could see, and here he was, nearing on thirty with his parents celebrating their anniversary, all their friends smiling on their marital success. What was the secret? How did they stay strong for so long?

Hope had always wanted to ask his mother why, but felt less sure of his right to question anything when it came to matters of her heart. She had her reasons, she would tell him if he needed to hear it – and she took her reasons down to the grave.

All he could do now was hope it wasn't for his sake.

"What's the worse they could realistically do?" he asked Lightning, because speaking was a distraction and her voice was a reprieve he needed, even if he didn't deserve its comforts.

Her answer came quickly, as dark as a cloud smothering the sun. "Use you as a martyr to distract the population when things go wrong."

"... Has that happened before?"

"It always happens, Hope. One way or another, the Conseil has to keep Eden's peace, even if it means they have to tell a lie to do it."

"And does the Patron authorize it? How does a person even get so desperate?" he asked, unable to resist the self-damning slip at the end.

Hope didn't understand why Lightning's eyes narrowed to a hard point or why her hands became fists at her side. Not unless she knew he was lying – not unless she was preparing to hit him with those shifting, tense knuckles. "Even a person lost in the dark would rather burn their maps to light the way then continue on blind."

Hope suddenly didn't know who she was talking about anymore – the Patron or herself? "Any other advice you care to share before we go in there, Light?" he asked, grasping at any question that floated to the surface of his mind now.

Lightning nodded. "Talk to Vanille, but _listen _to Snow. Got that? And if it starts to look bad, I'll get us out of there."

Her tone left little room for an argument, but Hope couldn't bring himself to stop the words that came next. "How? Can we open up a pocket for emergency evacuations or something?"

She snorted. "No, not exactly. I'm just used to getting myself out of tricky situations by now – in ways that doesn't always involving hacking things apart."

The hallway, cavernous and tall, and yet with its narrow walls that seemed to press in tighter the further down its depths they traveled, echoed the faintest hints of their conversation to the rafters. Hope glanced up briefly, his eyes on the Chaos, wondering how much Lightning could see. "That _would_ be a good skill to have. But wait – getting _yourself _out? Just you?"

Lightning turned her head to the side as if his words had forced her to look away. "... Plus one. It's been a while since I succeeded, though."

Such shame in her voice. And such a heavy, awful weight that made his guilt turn absolutely rotten. "... Light... I – "

Lightning cut him off with the all the blunt grace of a slap. "Don't. Don't say whatever it is you're gonna say next."

Hope wouldn't let these words sting. He didn't deserve the indulgence of the ache. "But you didn't even know what I was going to say."

"It's either an apology or you're going to ask me to explain things I'm not ready to talk about. Not now."

_Tread lightly now, _he thought, though he felt no fear at Lightning and the strength she so clearly wielded. Whatever thin ice he tread on now was nothing more than the glass case around her heart, and every step had the power to turn itself into a mortal shard. "... Does it have anything to do with what you said to me in the hospital? About your life being... strange?"

"It does a little," she said, allowing this one little remark.

Hope couldn't let the moment pass without trying his best to fix something, _anything. _It was a good thing he decided against going into medicine: he would make the most miserably histrionic doctor alive. "Well... I'm always ready to listen, whenever you're ready to talk."

That such lying lips could utter those words and have dared to kiss her filled Hope with a disgust that bordered on acidic. It burned in his throat and down to the pit of his gut, where it chewed its way through the walls of sinew and vein, corroding him, corrupting him.

As they walked in silence down the long narrow hall, half shrouded in darkness that peered in from the arched, thin windows and hovered in the spaces between each gaslamp, not to mention the dark fog of Chaos present with every step, Hope's thoughts turned unwillingly onto Caius. How easily he remembered those somber eyes like amethysts, and a sickle smirk that dug hooks into Hope's skin, tugging unkindly at his nerves – but it wasn't his appearance that haunted Hope, so much as the man's words.

"_Remember me, for we shall meet again." _When, in another dream?

"_He never knows anything, no matter how much he's told." _But who's fault was that – the person telling, or the person listening? The burden of understanding was a shared thing.

"_There can be no victory without blood, little Guardian." _The grime and filth he'd scrubbed off his body in the shower attested to that, but most of that wasn't his own. And he dreaded to think of how much Lightning had shed in the days and weeks, perhaps _years, _of fighting as a Guardian alone, before he was dropped into her life. She deserved better than the bruises and aches inflicted on her heart from that long, lonely time – all brave and damaged people did, but there was next to nothing Hope could do about all the others, and only so much he could do for her.

Lying to make her happy wouldn't be the only way – it couldn't be. He didn't want it to. And so, carrying this conviction like a stone on his heart, Hope made a vow to himself in the silence. He locked his eyes onto the rigid and unrelenting set of Lightning's shoulders, and promised that _his _blood would be the only one shed in their quest for victory over whatever other horrors the hours and days ahead would bring.

A specter of Yeul's face turned to watch them pass from every window they cleared, vanishing each time Hope turned to look at her properly. _Are they close by now? _He wondered, his heart leaping into a gallop at the idea, not entirely pleased with the prospect. _Are they all watching me again? _Yeul's voice rose up, a ghostly echo that made him shiver, like a cold hand clasping the back of his bare neck.

"_The two of you, a pair knotted and tangled across so many lines and lives, but never changing fates." _Then why didn't he remember? What was keeping him from pulling forth a single second of those days together? _Why should Light be the only one to remember?_ Shouldn't partners share a burden together? But it was the last word in that cryptic line that bothered Hope the most: fate. He had no faith in the concept, not in the slightest. His decisions were always his own, no matter what it looked like to someone else – even if that someone was a sad-eyed, remarkably insightful young girl existing outside of time and space, in the land between dreams and waking. Such places would give anyone the perspective of a perched, watchful god.

And just like Hope watching all the shifts and turns of Lightning's expressions, the rage that would burn alive and die fast without him ever understanding what gave it the initial birthing spark, all Yeul could do from where she reigned was observe, never interfere. Surely she and her companions would have done so already if they had that power. _"All I can do is find where the points intersect and attach myself to these moments." _Like a spider weaving worlds between each angle of her web – but it was a home, just as much as it was a trap.

But why? Why him, and why the pair of them? What did Lightning mean to Yeul, and what did her success, and their continued partnership, matter in a grander scheme that would mean a damn to a person who could exist beyond time's reach?

_It might be time to revise your belief in fate and god_. But that was not a choice Hope felt he had the energy to make. Not now. Perhaps not ever. And yet –

"_A life of endless choices. Your life belongs to shadow and void and shade." _

_But it's _my _life, _Hope thought again, clenching his hands and teeth and taking in a low, shaky breath that he prayed Lightning didn't hear. _It's my life, no matter who gave it to me first and who gives it back. Parents or Primarchs, it doesn't matter: my life is my own._

For an instant, Hope felt more than a little sympathetic to the restless fire that kindled Noel's every word. It was hard not to let one's passion turn into reckless fumbling. The more your heart charred inside the furnace of its courage, the harder it became to keep yourself reasoned and rational.

_What would Caius say to that?,_ Hope wondered. And Noel as well – ill-tempered, hot-blooded, but just as bound to duty and honor as Caius clearly was. What would Noel say to Hope if he could see him now?

"Light... have you ever had a dream about a pale white room? After you became a Guardian, I mean."

"I don't dream. I don't sleep enough for it."

"You don't sleep at all?"

"Didn't say that. I said I didn't sleep _enough_." Her hand was on the door, lying flat and still, the nails uneven, slightly chipped, and a little dirty. "And about the Patron... he's a little stressed out. At least he was when I left him."

Hope waited, sensing there was more to be said.

Lightning chewed on the corner of her mouth. "He... talks to himself sometimes," she began, but faltered again. Hope noticed that her voice was gentle, but different from a tone of kindness – it was more like tiptoeing into a minefield. Was she afraid? Hope's heart sank further, stone-hard and weary.

Lightning continued. "I meant it when I said you should talk to Vanille but _listen _to him," she said.

"And I heard you," Hope reminded her gently. "But what do I do if he asks me a question?" He was trying his absolute best not to be reminded in any way, shape or form of all the conversations he had with his mother in dark years prior, about another man with an uncertain temperament and uneasy nature. Trying and currently failing.

_She's not your mother, and you're no longer a child, _Hope said, filling every foggy corner of his brain with this fact._ You're braver now, stronger – even if it means going up against the man who rules all of Eden. _He hoped there wasn't some kind of block around using handy little pocket dimensions inside the Palace – Vanille had been able to use her powers well enough, but she could have been granted some sort of freedom Hope couldn't expect to have if the meeting didn't go so well.

"You say whatever will make him happy," Lightning said, leveling Hope with a stare that was as cold as her eyes.

That sounded too familiar for Hope's liking. "How the hell am I supposed to know _that_?"

"Listen, look, observe, and learn. Ready?"

_No_. How could she make it sound so easy? Just how long had she been dealing with the Patron and his strange turns of temper, a rage that stood so unjustified in Hope's eyes, no matter what the reason or cause of them could possibly be? "Open it," he said. It was about time Hope stood face to face the man who called himself Eden's protector.

The Patron's voice poured out from the door the instant Lightning's hand seized the handle and pushed. It was a deep and somber voice, filling the room with an echo that rattled the teeth in Hope's head, followed closely by a shiver. _Dad didn't talk like that, _Hope had to remind himself before he could take a step forward. _Dad was never so calm or steady, not when it was time to be afraid of him and tell him what he wanted to hear. _

Hope's eyes found the Patron without delay. He was the only other person in the room; no trace of the Conseil existed in the large, dark and lonely chamber. Besides him, Hope felt Lightning draw up short, her breath ragged as it pushed out in a little strangled gasp. Whatever she had expected, it hadn't been _this._

The Patron was walking to a crystal of a woman, with her hands folded over her chest, a faint ghost of a smile on her ice blue lips. She was laid out on an altar in the center of the room, a point of honor and prestige. Even her skin seemed like ice, pale blue and twinkling, and the room temperature dropped enough to make Hope shudder again the longer he stared at her. She was alive – he couldn't know _how _he knew, or why he felt so certain that it was true, but Hope trusted his gut the way he trusted Lightning's reaction to the woman: she could hardly bare to look at her.

It was cold in the room, as cold as the barren white chill that was the Patron's namesake; as cold as the frozen woman set up on display for any in the room to see, with a darkness that was deliberate. The lights in their sconces were lit, but the darkness that filled every part of the chamber, that wretched Chaos cloak of shadow, was so pronounced as to make them as weak as any gutted flame. The only true unbroken light in the room seemed to come from the frozen woman on the altar, as if her skin itself glowed from up and within.

Hope's first thought was that she was a monster, some new form of a ghoul that the Patron was keeping close by to experiment on. It would certainly account for the "emergency" that Lightning had mentioned, but it did nothing to explain the absence of the rest of the Conseil. The Patron and this strange woman were the only people in the room – unless, for some reason, the rest were choosing to stay hidden. Hope couldn't imagine why they'd do something so childish, but he couldn't blame them for not being here to witness the beautifully eerie sight that was this glass-encased woman. He cast a quick look at Lightning, eager for any clues to take from her reaction, but her eyes were pointed forwards and her face was a perfect portrait of composure. Only the little slant of her eyebrows gave away the game to her hidden unease.

Uncertain what to do next, Hope chose to examine the other man for as long as he paid his new audience no mind. The Patron was a tall man, as wide and muscled as Gadot, and happily classed in the "too large to be allowed" category by Hope, who was just about dwarfed by him, standing just shy of six feet. He wore a double-breasted suit of the deepest velvet blue, and Hope recognized some of the patterns woven into the fabric from the designs on the Infirmary pillow. Cold and pale wisps moved through the man's clothing like an icy wind, the colorless contrast to Chaos. Perhaps a deliberate design, considering the state of this current room, and the Chaos that Hope had seen lurking in the halls and sick room just recently abandoned. Matching dark blue trousers covered the Patron's long, thick legs, and there was a curious design on his belt-buckle, like a world wrapped in spirals, resting atop a thin spiked pillar. It matched the necklace the frozen woman wore, and for a moment Hope wanted to call attention to it with an offhand, complimentary comment. Lightning's warning returned to him, and made him think otherwise.

_The Column of Tears, _Hope thought as he glanced between the necklace and the belt again, his mind drawing up the story he'd heard ages ago as a child clinging rapt and eager to his mother's bedtime tales. _The world sits balanced on a needle wrapped in heaven's threads, ever in peril of each turn being its last. But the threads cradle us as much as they bind, and they will never snap, no matter how much we pull at its web. To believe is not to be blind, but brave._

The Patron didn't break off his conversation despite the arrival of an actual audience, and try though he did to block his ears to the sound, Hope found himself eavesdropping on the Patron's personal madness all the same.

"... Take care of it, baby. You'll see. Just give her some time to cool off and rethink what you said. Light'll come around eventually." He paused and bent his head, as if listening to a distant word. Slowly, like a man trembling in his sleep, the Patron began to nod. "Yeah, we should. Good point. But if might be best if you tell her that yourself." He smiled, a crooked grin full of devotion and love – so why did it terrify Hope to see it? "Of course. I'll be right there with you, don't worry. I'll always be there for you – plus I know how scary Sis can be."

Having heard enough, Lightning cleared her throat. It was a small sound that cracked a hole in the shell of the Patron's little world, letting in space for another's words to grab his attention. The Patron glanced at her with a gaze that held no recognition, no warmth at all for the woman who, Hope was quietly surprised to realize, was obviously some kind of family to him, tied together as through the their respective threads to the frozen woman...

… Who could only be Serah. That explained more than a few things to Hope in a matter of a simple, awful second. Lightning's marble expression made more sense now, as did the faint resemblance Hope saw between the two women: the round chins and soft slant of the noses and lips. Both women were now frozen in blank slate states, too, but Hope wasn't sure that could count for an appropriate family resemblance. Neither conditions could be helped, after all. Snow's peculiar behavior had an explanation now too, but it did nothing to soothe Hope's unease at the man in charge of ruling an entire city from both domestic and supernatural terrors. Knowing the source of someone's grief very rarely meant it could be cared for: Hope knew that well enough from all the years with his mother.

"Sorry to interrupt," Lightning said in a tone of pure formality and little penitence. She wasn't sorry at all.

"Don't just apologize to me," Snow said. He waved a large, gloved hand at Serah on the altar, casting a pale shadow over her slumbering form. "She deserves one, too."

Wrenching her eyes from Snow's gaunt, haunted face was easy for Lightning to do – it was looking at her sister that became a trial almost impossible, a wound near to fatal.

"I'm... sorry, Serah," she said, and Hope felt his own heart break at the words.

The Patron only smiled, clearly pleased. He turned to look at Hope. "Brought a friend in, too? Oh... don't tell me. You're Hope, right?"

"I am," Hope said, before he remembered his pleasantries. "Yes, sir. Nice to meet you."

There was a painful pause. "... And Serah, too. It's nice to meet you."

Snow glanced at Serah and leaned in close. Was it Hope's imagination, or did her smile change from just a few moments ago? It was wider now, almost a grin.

"You noticed it too?" Snow asked, laughing under his breath. "I wonder what's got him so nervous."

"Snow... stop it."

Snow ignored Lightning and turned his attention back to Hope. "I don't have much time to waste on playing host right now, but all I want from you is a simple answer. Think you can do that, Hope?"

"I think so, sir. I can try."

"Better than not trying," Snow said. "If I told you to work for me, for the sake of Eden and whoever in this city you care about and want to protect, would you do it? Yes or no?"

Hope's mind caught fire in silence.

_Work for a crazy man? _The obvious answer would be a flat, stark no. But...

_Well, you _did _sign a contract with the Primarch._

_And you keep having odd dreams, about people who live outside of reality and discussions on the sadistic nature of a possible God. Working for a man whose grasp on sanity isn't exactly the strongest wouldn't be a _new thing _for you, Hope. Not with the current state you're in._

Hope looked over at Lightning. Her face was in shadow, her eyes downcast and her lips pressed tight. The heat from their kiss felt like ages past, the fond memory of another life. Even so, Hope cherished the warmth she had given to him in those precious minutes of wordless, silent caresses.

He only wished she would look at him now, and give him something like strength again.

_Not that I deserve it. Liar, coward, fool. _Every taunt that the shades in the hospital had given to him had been right in the end, and there was no word to describe the heaviness that flattened Hope's heart at the thought.

Keeping his mind on his vow to Lightning, the one uttered in silence but nonetheless utterly true, Hope said, "Yes, sir. I would."

"Good man," the Patron said. "When can you start?"

Hope opened his mouth to answer, but that was when he noticed that Light had left the room, taking his voice and courage along with her. He stared at the Patron, helpless and silent.

The Patron knelt down beside Serah and laid to rest one of his hands atop her clasped, frozen palms. He laughed again, a sick sound that suggested nothing of happiness. It seemed to echo in the darkness and remind Hope just how much fear and loathe about the nature of people, whether they be Guardians or not.

Snow looked up at Hope. "Serah says to get used to that. Lightning likes to leave a lot."

It was Hope's turn to laugh, joyless and hollow. "Thanks for the advice," he said, to both the Patron and Serah, frozen but alive.

He knew he wasn't imagining it this time: her smile was changing, growing wider as if she, too, were trying to laugh at the dark.


	11. Chapter 11 - Change, Chance, and--

**Chapter 11 **– Change, Chance, and Circumstance

Perhaps the only chance at the relief Hope had, was finally having some place, _any _place, to take refuge. It made a nice change of pace considering his first week as a Guardian was marked by confusion, blood, and half-coherent dreams providing more questions than they relieved. Unfortunately, Lightning remained the one exception to this chance – but Hope did not know how to approach that wounding subject, so he chose not to. Not yet. However, even with all the comforts of the Palace at Hope's disposal, he still couldn't deny the unease just being under its roof brought to him. That there seemed to be an almost willful amount of ignorance going on with certain members of the Conseil only added to this, driving a resolute wedge between Hope and peace. It was a sort of deliberate, forced calm and charm that only worked to rile up his nerves the more he encountered it, as if there were a blade dangling ever lower over their heads whose shadow and threat they could avoid as long as they didn't talk about it.

"It" being Snow and his obvious, grieving madness. The Patron had been far more polite than Hope expected him to be, especially after he agreed to work for the Conseil. He'd even shaken hands with Hope when they departed, clapping him on the arm like they were brothers instead of strangers... Hope knew he shouldn't be so suspicious of the Patron, that the strange condition Serah was in would have broken anyone's heart, should they love her the way Snow clearly did. But it was still more than a little frightening to think that the man in charge of keeping Eden safe was in such a clear, desperate need to be protected than frightening, it was almost cruel.

This point – or rather, the avoidance of it entirely – was hanging heavily on Hope's mind when he met other members of the Conseil's Left Tier, just one day after meeting the Patron. He'd ducked into the library closest to his room in the East Wing and was trying to decide which shelf to examine first when the door opened behind him with a quiet click.

"Got a minute, Estheim?" The familiar female voice came from a point over Hope's shoulder, and he turned from where he sat at the long, oaken table in the Palace library to respond. Lebreau wasn't alone – that surprised him. Gadot was with her, standing a few paces back next to two younger men, both barely out of adolescence, who looked as uncomfortable as Hope always felt when he had to greet strangers at that age.

"Sure," he said, glancing between the two new faces before looking at last at Lebreau. "Make yourselves comfortable."

The quartet took up the rest of the chairs around Hope, enveloping him in a tense little circle. Gadot slung his arm over the back of the chair to Hope's left, giving him a silent, quick nod while Lebreau chose the seat to Hope's right. Her arms and legs were quickly folded, and an air of strict business radiated from the roots of her hair down to her fingertips. Hope appreciated her no-nonsense attitude more now that she didn't have a gun pointed at him. It also gave him some hope that whatever she had to say wouldn't take too long.

"Thought I'd introduce you to these two, now that you're finally on board_,_" Lebreau said, and she jerked her chin forward to the boy in front of her, a blond, bright-eyed, gangly young man who was peering at Hope with clear, keen interest. "That one's Maqui. His eyes'll pop out if he keeps staring like that, but does he listen to me? Nope."

Maqui scowled, his eyebrows slanting forward beneath the goggles and headband he wore across his forehead, a strange accessory that made Hope think of mechanics and mad scientists. But Maqui was too young to be either, surely – he looked barely older than seventeen. Perhaps he had a junior set or something – Hope did, when he was that age.

"Staring doesn't make someone's eyes pop out of their head," he argued, and if he were any younger, this would've been the time he folded his arms and gave an almighty pout. Hope almost chuckled at the thought. "And it's not on purpose. I just... He's not what I expected."

Hope tried to imagine what sort of story preceded this meeting, if it involved a retelling of the screams and fits he supposedly threw when they dragged him out of the hospital basement and back to the Palace for safe-keeping. He almost cringed at the thought, embarrassed and frustrated that this would be their first impression of him – but then he wondered if it had been some kind of warning, a way for them to prepare for adding on to the already staggering presence of grief in the Palace.

_They have to know about Snow – they _have_to. _Hope looked between all four pairs of eyes, as if the weight of that knowledge could be seen in their gazes._How could they not? Unless it's something he only shows to Lightning. _That would explain the bait-and-switch meeting from last night, though Hope couldn't be sure how much he believed this. It made no sense, for one thing. And Lightning had gone to talk to the Patron one on one earlier – hadn't she?

_Unless she was lying. _But why would she?

_Why did you? _And where could she have gone otherwise?

"What's that look for?" Gadot asked, laughing.

"Nothing, it's just... Well, what did you expect?" Hope asked Maqui, trying to smile as he said it, but Maqui only shrank back as if he'd growled instead. This little flinch of fear happened just for a moment, but did not go unnoticed. Gadot cleared his throat and Lebreau almost sighed. The young man next to Maqui leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

And then, to Hope's surprise, Maqui smiled. His shoulders dropped, as did his outward look of fright, and he even offered a laugh, cheerful and breezy, like someone who'd been caught making a harmless mistake. "Someone a lot scarier and a little less normal than you are," he said, scratching the back of his head. "But you're just like everyone else! I thought all Guardians would be different, like Vanille and Snow."

"Neither one of them look too different to me," Hope pointed out. "Besides the obvious, with Snow I mean." It was a cheap way of bringing up the subject he was so keen to talk about, but to his dismay, no one in NORA seemed interested in taking the bait.

"It's not about their appearance," Maqui clarified, frowning as he tried to find the words. "More like..."

"More like something in the air around them," the other young man said, a delicate, dark-eyed boy who Hope would admit only in the strictest confidence of his own mind was alarmingly pretty. "Something cold that could burn you at the same time, if you get too close."

Hope didn't know what to make of this. His only thought was of his first impression of Lightning when they'd met in the hospital, but that wasn't something he saw fit to share with anyone currently sitting at the table.

"And that one's Yuj," Lebreau said, waving her hand at him.

The second young man held out a hand for Hope to shake, giving it a firm, friendly squeeze when their hands met. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Estheim."

"Call me Hope, please."

"Alright. Hope." Yuj smiled as he said the name, as if testing it out.

Lebreau continued. "They work with Gadot and me in NORA – oh, you know about NORA already, right?"

"I do," Hope said, hiding the pang the name still brought to him.

Lebreau nodded. "They're pretty young, but don't let that fool you. They're more useful than they look." Hope could tell right away that she was teasing, and perhaps Maqui and Yuj did as well, considering how long they'd known her. But they took turns lodging little complaints against Lebreau for this injustice, poking fun right back, and soon the table was lost in a wave of laughter and cheer.

_They really are like a little family, _Hope thought, waiting for the jokes he had no part in to pass, looking discreetly at the pile of papers in front of him. This thought was isolating and absolute, as if a door had slammed shut between him and a room he'd been trying to enter. Did they show this kind of warmth to Snow, too? But how could _any _of them could crack jokes or smiles of any kind when their friend and the leader of their city was in such obvious, dire straits? _Don't they know what's going on? Do they have any idea how _bad _he is?_

This thought stung Hope harder than he expected. He understood for the first time what Lightning had meant when she'd referred to NORA as reckless and rash, just a bunch of kids playing hero. _Chaos is crawling all around the Palace, and the Patron is half out of his mind with grief – and they're sitting here making small talk with me? _It didn't make sense, however nice it was of them to go out of their way for his sake. And yet Hope would much rather be reading them then spending time making acquaintances with the rest of the Conseil, but he couldn't think of how to say this without being rude.

_Lightning would probably get up and walk out the door._ Hope considered doing this, had even flattened his hands on the table and prepared to stand up, but Lebreau started to talk again and he was caught.

"I figured you should meet them, since you're part of the team now," she said. "And it might help if you get an idea about what they can do. They might be useful next time you go out to hunt down a core and those little nasties it spews up."

"You don't do that yourselves?" Hope asked, eying the two young men.

Sharing a mixture of apprehensive, embarrassed looks, they both shook their heads, but it was Lebreau who answered. "That's me and Gadot's job. Well, it _used _to be. We might have to work something different out now that you're on board. And I imagine Ms. Lightning'll want to butt in, too."

"As she should," Gadot said, speaking fairly and earning a small, appreciative smile from Hope. "She's a part of this too, you know."

"I don't see her sitting here. Do you?"

"She's here in spirit," Hope said, an attempt at a joke, but he meant it as a confession of his own belief, too.

Lebreau only shook her head and brushed her hair out of her face, clearly far from interested in keeping Lightning a topic of the conversation. "Anyway, Yuj is more like a spin doctor, in case word about you Guardians' and your little _activities_ gets out before an official statement can be prepared. He's the guy you want dealing with the public – he's got charm oozing out of every perfectly refined pore."

"Thanks, Lebreau," Yuj chuckled.

Hope could not tell if there was an insult laced inside her words or not, as if she were judging their lack of discretion in some way he couldn't quite grasp. It was hard to tell with Lebreau – she seemed in a constant need to cut things down to size as a way to manage them better. He would have found this sarcasm refreshing if he didn't feel like he was a target of it.

"So he's a professional liar," Hope said, half joking himself, wanting to see if he could manage it.

Yuj took this with more grace than Hope expected, but his answer had a definite clipped quality to its tone. "Only when I have to be," he said.

Lebreau cleared her throat and carried on. "And Maqui's the guy to talk to if you have any questions about machines or tech of any kind. He helped us track down that core in the hospital morgue last night – too bad he said nothing about _living _people being down there, too." Lebreau finished, throwing Maqui a look. "Speaking of which – you had something you wanted to give him, right?"

"Hey, I _told _you there were signs of life down there. It's not my fault you assumed they'd be monsters."

Lebreau shrugged. "It usually is. Just give him the thing, kiddo."

"It's just a prototype, but... Sure, I guess," Maqui said, shrugging and scratching at his head again. With his free hand, he dug into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out what looked like a small, silver star. He held it out for Hope, who picked it up as carefully as he could.

"What is it?"

Maqui all but bounced in his seat as he replied. "It's a communication device and a tracker. Keep it on you whenever you leave the Palace so you can stay in touch with us back here, and we can send help if you need it."

Hope studied the little silver stud. It was as small as his thumbnail and designed with obvious care. The idea that it could have any purpose besides being a pretty accessory, let alone one a purpose as complicated as what Maqui had just glossed over, was more than a little impressive. "Do you give this to everyone in the Conseil?" he asked, unable to stop himself from remembering Lightning's warning about how the Conseil could set up martyrs to be used as distractions. _They're not trying to do that with me, are they? _Get closer, draw him inside their fold as if he were one of the family, only to prepare to sell him out as an Eden-wide whipping post should things turn sour.

They didn't seem capable of such cruelty – but then again, Hope hadn't thought himself capable of violence and murder, and he'd walked over a pile of bodies no more than twenty-four hours ago.

"Only to people who go out on the field," Maqui said. "So far that's just Lebreau, Gadot, you and Lightning – oh and Fang."

"Who?" Hope asked.

"The Patron's personal bodyguard," Gadot said, sharing a look with Lebreau before he rose to his feet. "We should get back to work – there's still a mess we have to clean up at the hospital."

Yuj nodded and stood up as well. "I've been on the phone with them since last night. Are you headed over there? I'll catch a lift."

"Sure thing." Gadot glanced at Maqui. "And _you_ might want to check in with Vanille. She's been all in a panic since that little _emergency _of yours."

"What emergency?" Hope asked, remembering that Lightning had mentioned it in passing.

Maqui's face turned a brilliant, burning red. "It was an honest mistake!" he protested. "It's not like I was _trying _to break it. Snow asked me to check the locks, so I did."

Lebreau shook her head, arms folded over her chest. She leaned in conspiratorially to Hope, whispering in a mock undertone. "We've got a holding tank down in the cellar that we've been hoping to get some use out of – until Maqui broke it."

"I told you, I didn't break it." Maqui all but stomped his foot, and Hope almost wanted to rise to the younger boy's defense. He didn't know where to start. "Snow _told me _to open it up. He said he might have to use it soon for – ." Maqui's words came to a swift halt. He clamped his mouth shut and glanced nervously between Hope's curious eyes and Lebreau's stony glare.

"For Serah," Hope finished.

A chill passed around the table at the mention of her name.

"What happened to her?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Nothing," Gadot said at once, eager to avoid the subject. "Let's get going, Yuj."

"You should ask your girlfriend about that," Lebreau offered, patting Hope's shoulder as she stood up. "It's her sob story to tell, not ours."

"She's not my girlfriend," Hope protested with perhaps a touch too much insistence, but none of them seemed to be listening.

Only Maqui hung back, looking down at the silver star inside of Hope's hand. "You'll hang on to that, won't you? It's really the only thing I could think of to try to keep you guys safe."

Hope nodded and, to make the boy happy, stored the little device in the almost hidden slot of his coat's breast pocket. "I'll keep it close, Maqui. Don't worry. … Thank you, for taking the time and the trouble."

Maqui grinned. "I was just tinkering around in the shop yesterday, when Lebreau and Gadot hauled you in. Figured it should actually get some use, instead of sitting around collectin' dust on my shelf." He shuffled his feet, the bottom cuffs of his trousers hanging in thick folds over his ankles – he was quite short, now that Hope got a good look at him. Perhaps only a little over five-foot-three, if even. "It's supposed to be part of a set, so... the other one can go to Lightning. You'll tell her, won't you?"

"Of course," Hope said. Such a request served Hope's purposes just as well, since it gave him a reason to find Lightning; she'd made herself scarce since last night, but a note hastily written, crumpled, and shoved under his door early this morning let Hope know that she was still on the Palace grounds. _Crashing in the room at the end of the hall, _the note had said. _Drop by once you get sick of the place._

Maqui continued. "Make sure she doesn't leave the Palace without it, okay? Snow doesn't want her off the radar again. It's not safe."

"I'll tell her," Hope assured Maqui again. "Thank you."

Maqui nodded again, smiled, and gave Hope a quick, awkward wave. "Well – I'll see you around! Don't be a stranger now."

Hope gave a feeble wave in return and watched the NORA crew file out of the room, like soldiers in a line or prisoners tethered to the same chain. They all bore a weight on their backs that made them hunch, heavy and burdened, as if they were about to collapse. Hope wondered where they got the strength to hide it, how they found the courage to smile and laugh amongst themselves, as if there wasn't anything wrong in the world at all. It couldn't be much different from the dark, bitter courage it took to say his lie to Lightning, right?

_That was different, _he thought, offended by this comparison. Hope removed Maqui's gift from his pocket and watched as it caught the light from the noon-day sun that pierced through the tint on the windows. _I said it to make her feel better, and I know there's _something _I'm forgetting about her, something important... And I'm not the only one, either. It's Vanille's problem, too. _Hope wouldn't soon forget the look on Vanille's face as her words died en route past her lips, the way her eyes seemed to darken and go blank, like a candle dying in a sudden, merciless sigh.

"It's the Palace," Hope said out loud, grateful that he was alone, that he could confide in himself and take strength in the sound of his own voice. "There's something in here that's messing with all of us." And what else _could _it be but the Chaos lurking in every corner, hanging aloft and pervasive, casting every natural shadow into deeper, sinister hues?

Only Vanille didn't seem to be too bothered by that. Surprised that Hope could see it, yes, but not in the least bit concerned that it _existed..._ Almost as if she had accepted it, made her peace with the darkness and the way it clouded every inch of the path ahead. Hope wasn't sure if he wanted to guess at what this suggested about the state of her mind. And perhaps, impossibly so, in light of the past twenty-four hours, the Chaos _wasn't _much to worry about – she was no stranger to the Palace after all, and it didn't even seem to bother the Patron much... Though he was admittedly distracted with other pressing issues at the time Hope met him. _A bride trapped in crystal would distract anyone, even if they weren't married to her._

So what else did that leave as a possible threat, then, besides...

"Serah?" Hope asked, snorting at the thought. "Don't be ridiculous. You don't even know anything about her."

Hope pushed himself to his feet and closed the silver charm in his hand, almost daring to crush it into a fine, broken mess of metal and wire. He stopped himself at the last second, relishing the bite of the edge against his skin instead. Taking a regretful look at the pages laid out for him to read – first-hand accounts of the Conseil's earliest encounters with oblivion cores and the creatures it spawned – Hope decided he would have to read them later. It was time he found Lightning, as per the request in her letter, and ask her a thing or two about her family.

He didn't know why, but Hope could have sworn he heard a woman's light, airy laugh following him out of the library into the dark, narrow hall, still so cold in the mid-day heat. As if death itself were a presence in the Palace, as if it were an honored guest with no inclination to leave – as if it were inextricably tied to Hope's life no matter what he chose, with no chance of releasing himself from this mortal circumstance.

_Better get used to it – that sorta stuff runs in the family. _The phrase entered Hope's head, but he couldn't understand why, and could understand even less whose voice it was. A woman's, that was clear, a woman's voice both unfamiliar and eerily kind, considering the subject matter and the way it was delivered: in the quiet, shunned corners of Hope's thoughts, as if it had access to these hidden silences and sought only to shine light on their every notion, to live forever in the shrine of memory.

* * *

In the Void Beyond the man calling himself the Primarch scowled, growled, and spat bitterly. "She ought to know better than _that_," he said, drawing the darkness closer to him, and then drawing himself closer to the veil that let him peer out and into Eden, from the comforts of his realm outside of the mortal world. "How foolish of you, Ms. Farron. How _selfish. _To make such a home where another has already staked their claim."

And yet... He must look at this from a practical perspective. He couldn't complain _too _much. He must remember all the players on the board, and all the times of their debuts. There was still the other one to rely on, to utilize and put his faith in, the way a master trusts a tool to do its practiced job. What else could a Guardian of Cosmos ever hope to do, but live out its fated purpose?

"Isn't that so, Ms. Farron?"

* * *

In her room in the Palace, Lightning shivered and pulled at her hair in tight, angry fists. Her teeth gnashed and her breath unraveled in the bramble cage of her chest. He wouldn't get out. He wouldn't get in. She wouldn't _let _him out – she couldn't help but give in.

Over the riot of her thoughts and the invasion of the Primarch's voice, Lightning barely heard Hope knocking on the door, asking quietly if he could come in. She almost said no, wanting him to leave, wanting him to be safe and as far away from her as he could get – until the thought of denying herself the comfort of his presence became more painful than the fact that every word and look and moment she passed with him since he'd awoken in the hospital had been nothing more than a lie.

Lightning held onto the door handle and waited until her breath returned to normal. She waited again until her face assumed a mask of nonchalance before she allowed herself to open the door. _I won't fail this time. I won't. I can't. _What could one more lie hurt?


	12. Chapter 12 - Unseen Intruder

**Chapter 12 **– Unseen Intruder

"Yeah? Who is it?" Lightning's voice passed through the thick layer of dark, polished wood and struck at a chord of guilt inside Hope's heart. He shouldn't enjoy the sound of her voice as much as he clearly did – he shouldn't let it make his spirits lift and his mind clear for just a moment, refusing to let him think of anything else besides the unbearably flimsy luck that had put her at his side. A luck that wouldn't last, surely.

_She doesn't have to stay with me. She doesn't have to stay here at all. _So why did she? Hope considered the answer quickly as he stared at a strange, warped half inch of the door in front of him. It looked like a mouth screaming.

_Because we're partners? Because I was stupid enough to kiss her? Because she thinks I remember more than I should. _But that couldn't be the only thing – _he _certainly couldn't be the only thing keeping her around here. Lightning was no fool – that was plain to see from the moment Hope opened his eyes and looked at her. She was strong in all the ways he couldn't be, bold in a fight and even more so when she squared off with people she didn't like; she was fierce and focused and perhaps a little vicious in all the ways he didn't _want _to be, but he couldn't deny there was a value to it. She'd gotten this far, hadn't she? She'd survived for who knew how many years with the secrets of Guardians and oblivion cores weighing on her heart, to say nothing of whatever had happened to her poor sister.

Her sister. Serah. Hope shivered, thinking of the voice in his head that surely wasn't his own, thinking of the smile on the frozen, beautiful face that haunted the Patron. Yes, it was clear to Hope that there was more to the corners of Lightning's heart than what she was currently allowing him to see. _It's not just about me. I'm not the most important thing. … That's a relief._

So then why did that hurt?

"Hello?" she prompted, and he heard the sound of her footsteps behind the door, approaching it. Hope couldn't bear to have her open it and find him standing there, struggling in silence and wavering somewhere between humiliation and acceptance. _I'm not the most important thing to her – and that's a good thing. It'll keep her focused in our next fight._

"It's me," he said and immediately winced, embarrassed. He always hated starting a conversation; even simple hellos had been nearly unbearable in the past. To Hope he always came off as either too casual or somewhat pompous, and there were long stretches of years where Hope assumed he wouldn't be worth remembering anyway, that the instant he left the room and someone else's view, he was likewise wiped out of their mind. Now he wasn't so sure if he even _wanted _to be. _Who does she remember me as? What sort of person was I? And who does the me I am now even compare?_

He hoped to find the answer in Lightning's eyes when the door opened, knowing that if nothing else around him was making sense, at the very least he could rely on the comfort he found in her gaze. It was astounding, always alarming, but never under-valued, just how much of her heart could shine out from a simple look. Even if she didn't have the words ready to say out loud, and even if she kept most of her thoughts buried behind silences and a hard, frozen shoulder, Hope knew that one look into her bright blue eyes would be enough to understand what her voice had yet to give life.

But such certainty made him anxious, as did his need to see her. What had he ever done to be worthy of even assuming he was in love? Nothing but survive, which he had long ago decided was an act more about _inaction, _a state characterized by _lack _rather than _significance. No matter what the dream Lightning said, it wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't anything important at all, really. _More to the point, he'd done nothing greater than kiss and tell a lie with lips that had seen more cuts and scabs and bruises than sweetness, and he wasn't counting the blink and you miss it romances that happened on dares and blind dates and lost nights as he aged. There was nothing like love in any of those moments – and that was the whole point. Hope knew that. He accepted it. So he didn't understand why he should think it was here now.

And yet, there it was. A raw, bared, terrifying truth he could not deny. _More precious than gold and more fragile than glass _- what else could that be but love?

The door opened, and all the air went out of Hope's lungs with it. He pressed his lips down tight, ran the edges of his teeth up against each other, and forced his voice to work. "Lightning... I – "

"Hope." She stopped him with a word. Not just any word – his _name_.

_How does she do it? How did she get this power over me? _Again, the answer was Lightning's eyes. The way she looked at him. The way she couldn't look at him. That embarrassed, half-hidden smirk she'd shown in the hospital, and her instinctive reaction to literally turn the world upside down if it meant he could possibly be safe. When had anyone else ever cared like that? His mother didn't count, not like this. Parents sometimes loved their children. Sometimes they'd even fight for them, to keep them from any kind of harm. Hope had never really cared very much for one person – there had been friends from school, yes, and local boys his age in the upscale neighborhood both his parents had worked so hard to afford to live in. But that had been different, so dreadfully different, from the spot Lightning had carved for herself in his life.

He felt like a man who lived his life wrapped in an airless, narrow cave, calling it a comfort and a true home, and then one day a light flashed, burning apart every corner of the choking dark. There was so much more to the world now, so much more to be discovered about the depths of his own heart – and all it took was dying to really open Hope's eyes.

"I need you... to do something for me," she said, hesitating in the pivotal point of the sentence as she looked Hope over thoroughly, taking in his shaking hands and his nervous, pale face.

"Sure, of course." Hope fought back the urge to add _"anything"_, catching the word as it rose up to be said and pinning it to the roof of his mouth where it could bleed out, silent. "I had something I wanted to ask you about, too," he said, well aware of how he'd leaned in closer to her, heart hooked to heart.

"I need you to tell me the truth," she said.

_Go on, keep smiling, you liar. _"Again? No problem, Light. What about this time?"

"What exactly did Dysley say to you about me? At your contract signing." Her words were sharp little tacks that took Hope by surprise, to say nothing of the rapid-fire beat of her tone. She was angry again – or else she was afraid. Her hands were shaking, and she steadied one on the door frame while making the other into a fist.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Hope asked.

"Just answer my question, okay? My first question." Lightning waited a beat, searching Hope's eyes. Something in hers softened, and she let out a small sigh. "Nothing's wrong and nothing... happened. I never got a chance to really ask you about it, so I figured I'd do it now."

"Is now really the best time?"

Lightning shifted her weight, propping her fist on her hip. "Is there another time you were waiting for?" she asked, searching him.

Hope shook his head. "No, I didn't mean that. It's just – there's a lot going on right now that seems a little more important than whatever happened with Dysley and me. That's all I meant."

"One thing at a time, Hope," she said. And then, as if realizing how she was standing in the doorway, feet firmly planted, barring him from even taking a look inside, she took a few steps back and pulled the door open wider. "Might as well come in while you think it over. Have a seat."

Hope hesitated. "I don't think I should get too comfortable. They might come looking for me."

"And eventually they'll come find you in here. What's the problem?"

"There _is_ no problem," Hope said, and as if to prove it her strode forward, one hard, heavy step at a time, into Lightning's room. It was bare, impersonal, and somehow colder than his room in the Infirmary – and without any hint of Chaos in sight.

The few hours Lightning had spent inside it since they parted ways last night, hadn't been enough to stamp any part of her personality onto it – the bed looked barely slept in, and he couldn't help but cast a quick glance at her to search for any telltale signs of weariness and delayed sleep. She didn't sway on her feet and her eyes, though slightly red around the edges, could have come from just about anything. Stress. Tears. A natural response to the Palace's perpetually dim lighting.

Lightning folded her arms and began to pace up and down the length of the room, her feet landing with pinpoint precision directly in front of each other, as if walking a razor thin wire. Hope took a cautious, not at all comfortable seat on the very edge of her bed, praying that the mattress didn't creak. He didn't want her to think he meant anything by his seating choice, but there was no other place to sit apart from the floor.

"It's important because it's about you," she said, whirling away from him, her hair bouncing back and over her shoulders, freeing up her neck. Hope noticed a pearl-pale scar stretching across her throat, but he blinked, shook himself, and was certain it had been a trick of the light. It was gone when she turned to face him again. "And it's about me, so that makes it pretty damn important."

"What's that?" he asked, losing track of the conversation as he kept his eyes locked on her. _Stop seeing things. _But how could he manage to do _that_?

"My question," Lightning said, stopping a few paces away from Hope and tucking her arms down against her chest. "So what did Dysley say to you?"

"Well, he never... mentioned you by name," Hope said, glad that the truth was exactly what he could provide now. "He said I would meet with an associate who would explain more about what was going on – which I should thank you for. I mean, I _will _thank you for it. I am... thanking you."

"Thanks. Or... I mean... you're welcome," Lightning said, offering him a smile that undid part of the knot working its way down his back. "... Anything else?"

"And that you put up more of a fight than I did."

Lightning drew back as if the words had given her a slight, reeling shove. "He said that to you? Word for word?"

"Word for word," Hope repeated. "I'm... almost positive, yes."

Her lips twisted into a cynical smile as she tapped her fingers against her arms, replaying the words as she shifted her weight from one foot to the next. The chipped steel plating on the toes of her boots glinted in the light, reminding him of a flash as bright as her nickname. "Can't help it," she muttered to herself. "It runs in the family, I guess."

_Runs in the family..._

_That sorta stuff runs in the family..._

_Rebellion runs in the family._

Hope gripped the blanket beneath him in tight, trembling fists as the words replayed in his head, overlaying with Lightning's own. They weren't the same voices, not in the slightest. Lightning's voice was a bit rougher, not at all like the softer, almost playful tone of the other – and yet... a familiar lilt of sarcasm, like a joke that followed a roll of the eyes or a little tilt of the head, was present in both.

But the last sentence, the one the dream Lightning had said to him, was exactly her voice, not a single cadence out of place.

_Runs in the family... Better get used to it – that sorta stuff runs in the family._

"Hope?" Lightning unwound her arms and stood straight as if drawn up by a string from the rafters. She crossed the rest of the room and crouched at his side, but her hands couldn't quite make the move from loosely curled fists to taking hold of his shoulders, supporting him and taking support back in equal turns. "Hey, Hope – are you all right?"

_Yes. _"No."

"Right – I can see that."

Hope moved his hands to the side of his head, aware of an awful, growing ache right above his left eye that made him hiss and then soon groan with pain. It was worse than the pain after the accident, worse than the glass and the scabs and the pinned, nearly broken limbs beneath the weight of so much twisted, broken metal. It was worse than the pain once the drugs wore off, worse than the absence of Lightning's healing touch – worse than death itself, pain is. So what if it could be endured? Nothing that hurt this bad was meant for the human heart to feel.

"Okay – kind of meant for you to tell me what's happening with that last part. So... What's _wrong?_"Her voice was strained, her tone sincere, and yet when Lightning reached out and gave his left shoulder an experimental pat, her hand came down so lightly it was as if she were afraid to touch him.

But that couldn't be right – she'd kissed him, let him kiss her back and returned the favor once more and once more again. _She can't be afraid of me. She's here to help me, isn't she? She's here to fight with me. _Hope opened his eyes and tried to find her own, but saw only darkness. Chaos had flooded the room when he wasn't looking, talking everything with it, leaving only a raw, ravenous shadow behind. He blinked, waited, opened them again. The Chaos hadn't quite left, but there she was, kneeling next to him and peering into his eyes with a look he'd never quite seen before.

Fear. She was afraid.

"Light... There's something going on here. There's something wrong with this entire building."

"I know," she said. Her other hand came to rest on the back of one of his, gently stroking the knuckles that shifted against his pale, tight skin. "I've known that for a while now, Hope. Why do you think I want to get out of here so badly?"

"So why _are _we here? Why are we staying?" _Say it's because you're worried about Snow. Say it's because you want to keep an eye on NORA, keep them in line. Say it's for Vanille. Say it's because your sister is really alive and well, that it's all some kind of joke, a joke I can laugh at one day when I wake up from this nightmare. Don't say it's about me. Don't make this my guilt now, too. Please._

"... Because I thought you wanted to." Lightning lifted her hand off his shoulder and reached out as if to cup his face, but her hand stopped when she saw the look Hope gave her. It froze there in the air, somehow vulnerable though it was still as stone.

"And you'll just do whatever you think I want?"

"No," she spat out, shaking her head, holding his hand tighter as she lowered the other one down. "No, that's not it at all. I just know from experience it's not a good idea to force people to change their minds. It's better to stick with them than work against them."

"How do you know that? Why?"

Lightning pulled back, and the absence of her touch burned. But then she was there again, holding his hands, her fingers slipping through the spaces between his. And she was trying to smile, trying to offer him something like a way to breathe and see and climb out of the hole his head was opening up for him to fall into – and it was working, but only just. "You already know why, don't you? You're a smart guy, Hope. You can put two and two together."

"So help me fill in the rest." He wanted to hear it from her.

She sighed. "... Serah was a Guardian before I was. She made the contract when I... when something bad happened. An accident."

"Like mine?"

"No, Hope," she said, her smile slipping, her eyes dripping with tears. "Not like yours. It's the kind of accident people won't forgive you for surviving, and they'll call you a coward if you succeed."

Hope saw it again, the pearl-pale scar on her neck – but it was wider now and darker, more cruel, and raw red like a wound that could open if he kept his eyes on it any longer. It was his attention that made it real, it was his fascination with the pain that made it into a real, true thing – and so he shut his eyes before the worst came to pass.

"I don't know how she did it. I didn't _believe _her when she did it. But that's Serah for you. You tell her something's impossible and she'll have figured out five ways to make it work." Lightning laughed, but it was closer to a sob, cold and horrible and so broken, so, so broken. "She's better than anyone in NORA, though. Smarter - she always was the smart one. And careful, too. She knows how to have faith in things, but she doesn't let it get to her head – well, she didn't. Snow's different, I guess." Her voice went soft again. "Most things about the heart tend to be like that."

"Light, I don't..." Hope looked at their hands locked together as if they were in a contest to see who could break first. "How did she become a Guardian if she didn't die?"

"You don't have to die to make a contract. You just have to reach a point so low it's like you'll never climb out again – that's how he gets you. That's how he _finds _you."

"Dysley?"

Lightning nodded. "Don't ask me how, I don't _know_ how. And I don't think he's the same as the guy who ran Eden, either. They can't be the same person."

"Why not?"

"If Dysley had that kind of power, do you really think he'd let himself get killed by Snow and his friends? Even _with _Serah helping?" she added, throwing her sister the benefit of her doubt.

It was a fair point, and Hope saw no reason to argue it. "So, you and I were contracted by someone calling himself Dysley?"

Lightning nodded. "Hell if I know why, though. Who could be so horrible they'd want to pretend to be _him_?"

_God laughs at you, Hope. _The voice of the Phantom from his dream came back again, ringing in the room as if she, too, were there to watch this entire exchange. "... Maybe it's God," Hope offered, more curious to see her reaction than believing it for himself.

Lightning went very, very still. "What did you say?"

"I said maybe it's God – or something that _thinks _it's a God. I don't know." Why were her hands so cold now? Why were her eyes so large and wide, dripping with tears that shimmered on the tips of her short, pale lashes? Why was she staring at him as if he'd said something worse than a curse, an insult so vulgar that it stunned her to a shaken, tense silence?

"What do you know about God?" she asked.

Hope's answer came quickly. "Nothing. I don't even believe there is one."

"Then why mention it?"

"It was just a suggestion, Light. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Don't say what you don't mean."

"Light, you're – you're hurting me." Another lie. She was _scaring _him.

She wouldn't let go of his hands. "Hope – what did you see when you passed out in the morgue?" She leaned in closer, blinking to make the tears fall. They slid down her cheeks with awful precision, like glass cutting in. The scar on her throat was alive again, wild and red and burning, and Hope was so sure it would split and he'd have to watch the blood come rushing down, taking her life and his heart with it. But she was breathing – she was alive, and she was _scaring him._ "You had a dream, didn't you? A vision? What did you see?"

How could he deny her the truth? "You. I saw you – but it couldn't have been you, you were... a little weird, trying too hard to be something you were not."

She laugh-sobbed again, and the tears wouldn't stop. "And did I say anything?"

"You told me why God laughed at us."

"Quote me. Go on."

"What does it matter?"

"Because it matters to me, now say it. _Please_."

"You said... you said God laughed at me, that he was watching me, and part of that meant I had to suffer. You said that's how it was, that's how it'll always be, unless someone challenged his law. … You said it might even be an honor, to be laughed at by him." Hope paused. "You said he laughed at me because you... loved me." Not in so many words, and certainly not a direct quote, but Hope wasn't sure he could bring himself to say exactly what the dream Lightning had said. _More precious than gold and more fragile than glass _– who else could be such a thing but the person you love?

"... And what else? Was that it? Was that why you were screaming?"

Hope shook his head. His words came out fast, a stuttering sputter, uncertain where they went in a sentence. "I don't know. I don't know why I was screaming – I didn't even know I was until you told me."

"What happened in the dream, Hope? What did I do to you?"

"Nothing, you were just – you were just talking and smiling."

"And I guess you didn't like that."

"Of course I didn't. It wasn't you – it wasn't anything like you. She had your voice and your face, but half of it was – " Hope couldn't say it. He wouldn't. _She was rotting and broken, she was trying to smile while half of her was withering into dust. She was trying and trying and trying so hard it was killing her, and there was nothing I could do to make it stop._

Hope opened his eyes again – when had he shut them? – to see Lightning shaking her head. Tears landed on their clasped hands and shivered there, running down the backs of their knuckles until it circled over and around their wrists. "This isn't right," she said.

"I guess strange things were bound to happen," he offered. "Considering what I am now. Right?"

But she kept shaking her head. "No, Hope. This isn't _right_." She closed her eyes, took in a breath, but her shoulders seemed to sag lower with its presence. "I didn't know you were seeing things like that. I only thought... with the injuries and all... I thought I hadn't done a good enough job patching you up. I didn't think it would be like this." She opened her eyes, looked at him, but didn't _see _him. His heart screamed in silence. "I didn't think it would come to this again."

There was barely enough air inside Hope's chest to get the word out. "... Again?"

The heat of her hand and her hesitation was a terror more agonizing to Hope than any he'd felt before. Certainly more terrifying than the Chaos that seemed to choke the very air of the Palace in its every room – every room besides this one. A terror that seemed to drive its Patron mad and preserve a woman who should be very, irreparably dead. A terror more profound than a woman who could still smile, a woman whose laughing, lilting, honey-sweet voice could find its way inside of Hope's thoughts as if she belonged there, as if he had ever heard her speak before.

And maybe he had – maybe the other him, the he that wasn't him, the one that Lightning seemed to remember, had heard Serah before. Perhaps they'd even met, and got along together as dear friends. Hope wouldn't know. It wasn't his life.

"Hope."

"Yes, Light?"

Why did she shiver when he said her name? That _was _her name, wasn't it? _She said I could call her that – she said she didn't mind. _"Do you trust me?"

_I think so. I want to. _"I do, yeah."

"Then I want you to close your eyes and stay very, very still." Lightning leaned forward, her forehead pressed against his. More tears landed down on his lap this time, thick, warm drops that seeped down through to the skin beneath. "Can you do that? Please?"

Hope took one last, long look at her face, suddenly sure he wouldn't quite see it like this again. He closed his eyes.

He didn't see the knife coming – but then again, neither did Lightning.

It was her screams that made him break his promise, made him open his eyes and raise a hand, ready to tear through the air and grab at whatever was hurting her like that. But Hope couldn't so much as move more than a few ineffective inches off of the bed before he saw the culprit.

Caius was there, as if he'd stepped out of the Chaos with no more effort than blinking. He had one hand wrapped around Lightning's hair, pulling her back and off the ground. He held onto both her and the knife at her throat with the impression that neither one interested him very much, and that would certainly make him careless - his eyes seemed to guarantee this. "We meet again, little Guardian," he said.

Hope was off the bed and barely a foot from the taller man within a second, his hand raised to tear his weapon out of the thin air the way Lightning had taught him – but Noel was there, too, slamming a fist and then bringing up a knee when Hope stumbled, splitting skin and drawing blood in a way that was far too familiar to Hope, though it hadn't been felt in years. His knees hit the floor and then his hands did, too, and he couldn't understand how people from his dreams could find a way to take root in reality and make a nightmare breathe – but there it was, and there they were. _It's the Chaos. It has to be - they're moving through it. That's how they watch me._

And they were giving him a choice. Just like Yeul had said: _"A life of endless choices, but there's always only the one answer in the end."_

"Come with us or she dies." Why was it so simple? How could they say it as if the words meant nothing? Caius didn't say a word of the threat – it was Noel who said it, Noel who lifted Hope up by gripping his hair in a fist, raising the other to smash against his nose for no reason Hope could really understand, but then again he never knew why his father liked to hit him so much, either. What sort of life breeds a man who chooses violence just because he can?

"_There can be no victory without blood." _But what were they hoping to win?

"Come with us," Noel said, raising his bloody knuckles high, ready to strike again. "Or she dies."

"Do it!" Lightning screamed, kicking and thrashing in Caius' grip, taking no care of the knife that was drawing a thin, red line at her neck, tracing the scar of the one before it. She was calling their bluff. "Go ahead and do it, see if I fucking care!"

But Hope did. Hope cared.

He reached up for the fist that Noel was swinging down, not to stop it but to hold it, to accept it – and it was then that Lightning screamed again.

"You can't leave me – not like this. Not again, no, Hope, _please_! _Don't leave me alone!_"

Hope wanted to look at her, but when he turned his head to meet her eyes, all the world around him seemed to drop dead.


	13. Chapter 13 - The Other Side of Death

**Notes**: Thank you so, so much to everyone who leaves a review or messages me about this story. I love seeing your theories and guesses for what's to come next, and I truly appreciate even general commentary about the work. Your perspectives are always valued~

Consider this a somewhat less painful update, in between what's sure to be a rather harrowing next couple of chapters for Hope and Lightning, both. It also answers just a bit more about what, exactly, Hope has been dealing with inside his head...

* * *

**Chapter 13 **– The Other Side of Death

For just a second and no more, Hope's back was to Noel and Caius as he lay bloodied and aching on the ground that was disappearing beneath his fingertips. He watched as a shadow spread out around him, moving not with the horrible steady reach of an ink-spill, but the kind of all devouring, absolute influence of death descending. It happened so fast, and he had no time to prepare for any of it– the light was there, and then She wasn't.

Gone.

Like a light switch. That's all the human life was. Nothing but a little switch that would one day shut off, all its fire and brilliance snuffed out in a dark, reverse flash.

"… _So many lines and lives, but with never-changing faces and fates."_ That statement didn't have to apply only to himself. What if that was the end game for everyone in this world? Every poor soul passed through the world utterly unaware of all the ways their lives could be ripped apart not just from the usual tragedies – break ups, illnesses, lies, diseases – but the trickier fiends that could ruin a life completely, a darkness that went beyond human understanding. And it was death, only death.

Everything in this world, human or animal, was born to die. Everything in this world was born crying, screaming, agonized – and they'd be lucky to die in peace, with smiles.

You didn't have to be anything special or gifted or singled out by a god to bear the burden of that fate. It was a shared thing, belonging to everyone.

But Hope didn't believe in fate. Did he?

And yet...

In the second that the light and Light faded from his view, in the second it took Hope to hang his head and watch as the darkness of Chaos drank him up, taking his abductors along as well, Hope knew for a second what it must feel like to believe in a god. Even death hadn't made him feel this powerless. Not even death had made him this angry.

What else could compare besides the agony of faith?

* * *

A Guardian of Chaos. What did that truly mean? To live by a vow, and not by sight. Because to guard a teeming, frothing madness that blotted out all light meant one had to see without seeing, to look without looking, to know without being able to understand.

In a word, impossible. To guard Chaos meant you had to be impossible.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, after so long of seeing but not truly looking, Hope finally saw it. He saw everything.

_There's threads and there's webs, and then there's _me. An impossible thing.

He saw images, choppy and grainy, stretched across a dark canvas as if there were a massive film projector lying out of sight. All of the images were stuttering as if terrified to reveal themselves before him, but reveal they must – they must be seen. Hope was inside of every image, a version of himself he couldn't immediately recognize, because they were all involved in scenes that Hope had no recollection of ever being in. Only a few surface changes could be seen to his body, such as scars on his cheek or a jagged cut across his eye, bandaged and cradled in gauze; his hair was shorter or longer depending at what image he looked, and sometimes his face was thinner, haggard and gaunt like a haunted man. _Like the Patron. _In some images Hope stood where the Patron did, on a dais in front of a council at a long table that could only be his own Conseil. _I was important once – I was someone who mattered, someone people looked up to and admired. _So what had gone wrong? What had changed, to make him as he was now? A broken, gutless, bookish recluse who could count the people he cared about on maybe one hand, a single finger if he were lucky.

Hope didn't always recognize the faces that flanked him: Vanille appeared once or twice, with Fang hovering close to her side, ever ready to lend a hand or a smile that showed more love than Hope felt he had a right to see. There were times when a tall, dark-skinned man with warm brown eyes sat on the council as well, in a uniform that matched all the ones Hope had seen in the Palace. Whoever he was, he was clearly respected and a man to be listened to without question – but then there were times when Hope saw the man full of a grieving, terrible pain, tears streaming down his cheeks and his hands clawing desperately into the dark as if he could tear it apart and reclaim a prize more precious than any jewel.

_More precious than gold and more fragile than glass. _… The man was trying to save someone he loved. But who was he? And where was he in this life?

Sometimes Snow was there, looking far healthier than Hope could have imagined, his eyes shining and his expression stern, showing a man with far more determination than the version Hope had met. That made sense: Serah was usually right there next to him, as grand and impassive as a queen listening to the petitions of her court.

But she wasn't always around in these visions, nor were Snow or Vanille or Fang for that matter. Lightning was the only constant, besides Hope himself. Perhaps not always at his side but always close enough to be seen, not so far away as to escape the reach of his hand.

But there were other constants, too. Less pleasant than Lightning's steady, immobile existence, and less comforting than the versions of Snow and Serah that weren't separated by cruelty. Recurring faces and forms that could only be called monstrous, ghastly, somehow too cruel to let live for long were in every vision, too. They appeared in the shadowed stretched of Eden's streets, or else crawled out from the earth itself, tearing holes to freedom and dragging down anything that stood within reach of their claws. Some were little different than the monsters Hope had seen in the hospital, humans transformed into moaning, gaping, milky-eyed ghouls whose only spark of life existed from whoever stood at a great distance, tugging on their strings. Other creatures were barely recognizable, nothing at all like what Hope had seen before in his limited, blind life. Dozens of golden eyes peered wildly out from every inch of their hunched, hulking bodies, which were covered in darkness so thick it made Hope's eyes ache to behold.

_They look as if they're shadows given life, _Hope thought, watching as image after image showed him these monsters slithering and crawling and howling their way across rubble and wood, invading homes, lurking inside cellars, carving out caves of solace inside of tombs and morgues.

Another recurring fact in these visions were battles, endless awful struggles between desperate, terrified citizens and those trained to handle combat. Eden was under siege. Chaos and fear itself ran rampant in its streets, turning the once idyllic Siren Park into a slaughterhouse. Why had so many people run there for safety? What safety could meadows and trees and quaint, calming rock gardens give them when faced with creatures born from oblivion? Leviathan Plaza, so near to the Academy where Hope had studied for the past ten years of his life, became a grave for humans and monsters alike. Piles of bodies lay stacked up all around, tended to by grim-faced, masked women and men who searched for a way to identify the dead, or else they were left to rot in the sun blackened by the smoke of funeral pyres.

And Hope and Lightning were there together, sometimes with Serah leading a charge, or else breaking off to take Snow with her, turning to glance over her shoulder with a look of fierce, unwavering pride that her sister's eyes reflected back. The four of them, broken into pairs, would stride among the bloody and broken, charging onwards to a victory seized from the very throat of failure and despair – all hope was not lost, but clutched in the last, gasping seconds of its life.

So why didn't he remember this? Why couldn't he remember what he was?

The answer came from a voice he knew to be his own, but with a gravity that suggested aeons of hardship, instead of years: _"He's trying to get his soul back to you, and you are killing yourself without it."_

But who?

In the distance, a man was laughing. This voice was also familiar, though it took Hope a few seconds to place it.

It was the same sound he made the last time he had really, truly cried.

* * *

"Dreaming again, are you?" Caius asked.

Hope opened his eyes and saw a familiar bone white ceiling. There were chips of paint flecking off, as if someone had taken a chisel to attack the once-pristine surface and give it a decoration of scars and flaws. There was a set of glass doors to his left, cloaked in a white veil that stayed absolutely still, motionless, an imitation of marble. But he could hear the wind rustling in the trees outside, sighing like a knife parting wet silk. Hope could hear the hush and sway of branches as they bent and bowed beneath a force unseen and indomitable.

"I'm awake," he said, both in response to the question and as a fact he could embrace. _I'm awake, I'm alive, and I'm here in exchange for a threat.__Don't get comfortable._

"I doubt that very much," Caius said.

"I can tell the difference between being awake and asleep – I _know _what the difference is."

"Those," Caius said, not laughing but lacing every word with amusement all the same, "are two entirely different things."

Hope sat up. There was a cage around him on the floor, a gilded trap that was as wide as his arm's reach and large enough for him to sit in comfortably, as long as he did so while hunched. He examined his prison quickly, resting a hand against the cold, bright bars and giving them an experimental tug. Naturally they didn't move, but the world around him seemed to _flinch,_ as if he were tugging at the threads of reality in a manner similar to what the Primarch had done to draw him closer.

_Lightning did this, too, _he remembered. _In the morgue, when Gadot and Lebreau showed up. _It hadn't been a power Hope thought to try out before, and he would have taken the time to curse himself for not being clever enough if Caius hadn't spoken up next.

"I would be careful with that if I were you," he advised from his place on a delicate, thin white chair that was no different from the ones Yeul and Hope had taken in their earlier visit, talking about fates and webs over tea and snacks. "You can tell it's no ordinary cage, yes? It responds only to touch, but reacts differently depending on the position the contact comes from. If I were to touch the cage and pull on it as you did, it would expand, maybe even open, if I felt like unlocking it. But the more you pull on the bars, the smaller it becomes."

Hope let his hands fall down to the floor, his fingers tapping an idle rhythm on the ground. "Why am I in here?" he asked, because it was the only question he had left after an answer like that.

"We know how disagreeable you can be, Hope. Especially after transitions between the other sides. We didn't want to leave anything to chance."

"Other sides... you mean dreams?"

Caius, Hope only now realized, was holding the same knife that had been pressed against Lightning's throat. He examined it with more interest than he'd shown when it was to be used as a weapon, digging the tip into the tabletop and spinning it idly with the fingers of his other hand, so that the silver, gold, and black designs along the blade and hilt could shine in the room. The blade glinted in the light, a jagged, terrifying thing that flipped open from its hilt to reveal a blade half as large as Hope's palm. The curved edge of the blade was serrated, creating the impression of teeth, and its shape reminded Hope of a crescent moon – two unnatural, unnerving descriptions that helped distract Hope from the distinct impression that Caius would have no problem using the knife again if given half a reason to.

"I do," Caius said, closing the blade and letting it rest near the edge of the table.

"What did you mean just now, about how knowing what's a dream and telling the difference are two different things?" Hope didn't particularly _want _to keep talking to Caius, certainly not after what happened in the Palace, but it was clear that the older man wanted to say _something_. He'd been the first one to open his mouth once Hope stirred from the dream, and though he was as mocking and cold as ever, he didn't seem interested in denying Hope a chance to actually have a conversation.

"I'll answer with a question," Caius began, resting his arms on the table and leaning forwards, but he kept his head turned to Hope. "Which oneis the real you: whoever you say you are, or whoever people _see _you as?"

"I'd like to think I'm the only person who gets a say in basic facts about my identity," Hope said.

Caius shrugged. "We'd all like to think that."

"But that wasn't an answer," Hope pointed out.

"You're right, it wasn't. I even said it wasn't. I said it was a question."

"A question that didn't explain anything," Hope continued.

Was Caius actually smiling at him? It wasn't a kind smile – Hope didn't think this man was capable of kindness – but it was a smile all the same, a small sickle curve no different than the shape of the blade resting next to his folded hands. "I thought you were supposed to be a scholar," he said, still smiling, showing his teeth this time. "What do you even learn at that school you're always going to?"

"I'm a researcher," Hope said, tapping his knuckles on the ground this time. "Or at least... I was."

"But what did you _do_?" Caius asked.

Hope thought about it longer than ever he had before. It wasn't a typical question, usually phrased as, _what do you study?_ There was a subtext to it, an underlying layer that startled Hope to even consider. Why_ do you do it? Do you even know?_ "... I'm not really sure," he admitted, and there was no part of him that could be surprised at this lack of information, only that it had taken him so long to realize it for himself. "I can't remember, to be honest."

Caius nodded.

"But that's been happening a lot lately – there's a bunch of things I don't remember about my life, and about Eden, too. Like the Patron and the Primarch... the ruler version of him, I mean – it's like I never heard of them before, not until Lightning mentioned them," Hope said, speaking to himself, but his eyes were on Caius, whose own eyes had lowered into a thoughtful, deeper well of introspection.

"Knowing who you are, and being able to tell the difference between yourself and what others _say _you are, are two different things," Caius said, offering a complete answer at last. "After all, you can never know who you are to someone else, not even if they tell you."

Was it Hope's imagination, or did Caius' face darken with misery, as if matching the shadows of his thoughts?  
"Who are you, then?" Hope asked, resting his arms on his knees as he drew them into a cross-legged position. Maybe if he got Caius in a nice enough mood, he'd tug on the cage just enough to give Hope more crouching space.

"Who do you see me as?" Caius returned.

"A stranger with an odd way of speaking who's one of two people holding me hostage," Hope said. He paused. "Three, if you count Yeul."

"I wouldn't discount her," Caius said, and there was a flash of pride in his eyes that Hope could only assume was as close to love as Caius was capable of feeling. "You'd be well advised not to overlook her."

"Then consider me well advised, I guess," Hope said, wondering what Yeul would say when she found him here. If his guess was right, her sad eyes and her gentle, soothing air were more than just a mask to wear when discussing cryptic circumstances with strangers. She had a kind heart, and kind hearts could be relied on to work in your favor. "You didn't answer me. Who are you – as far as your own opinion is concerned?"

A long, quiet moment passed. Hope listened to the wind in the trees outside, wondering where the birds had gone. There'd been birds last time he was here, but now the only signs of life at all were himself and Caius, sitting half slumped in a chair that looked like it might shatter at any moment.

"A Guardian of Death," Caius said at last. "One of two – three if you count Noel."

_Guess that explains why they're bothering me, _Hope thought, this little bit of information clicking into place with a satisfying snap, like a puzzle one misshapen frame closer to being completed_. I died and came back again – and they probably don't think too favorably on that. _But they hadn't tried to keep him here earlier, in their first meeting together. In fact they'd seemed content to just let him sit there at the table, waiting until they felt like joining his company –

"_He never understands anything, no matter how much he's told."_

_Oh. Oh, that's right. _They'd have left him there for as long as they pleased, staring around the wide, pale, empty room, biding his time in a world not quite like a dream, but so far removed from reality that Hope couldn't even be sure that the same rules applied to the place. _I only got out last time because I was waking up, because Lightning was there, waiting for me..._

_Just _waiting? Or maybe it was something else.

"Should I count Noel, too?" Hope asked, remembering that there was a conversation going on, and that he should probably continue to be a part of it.

"As I see him, yes. Yeul sees him that way as well. Although he might call himself something else." Caius began to spin the knife in slow, lazy circles with a long, thin finger, watching it move across the table top like a jagged cog in time. "Noel was always younger at heart. Confident, you could say. Even if he had little reason to be – but that's the young for you," Caius said, offering Hope a smirk that was equal parts mocking and sympathetic. "If you were to ask him, Noel would say we're Guardians of Souls."

Hope considered this. It was almost noble, and oddly sweet. "So what's the difference?"

Caius chuckled. "There isn't one."

"Are you God?" Hope asked.

Caius smiled. "What a flattering question. No, I don't think I am. I don't think you do, either."

"And Noel and Yeul?"

"Are Noel and Yeul. And very much human," Caius said.

Hope considered this, too. "... Were you really going to kill her?" he asked.

"Lightning?"

Hope nodded.

"No. No I wouldn't have killed her."

But this answer wouldn't do at all. "You held a knife up to her throat. You were starting to cut her. I saw you. I saw the blood."

"She was struggling, and the knife was sharp."

"So you're blaming her?"

Caius's gaze turned into a glare. "I'm _explaining_ it to you," he snapped. "I wouldn't have killed her. Nor would Noel have, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't," Hope said, surprised to see his hands had become fists. But he wasn't angry – he wasn't angry at all. The last time he'd felt so cold and calm was when he looked his father in the eyes and walked out of the house, that tyrant's lair, for good, disappearing into the dregs and dorms of the Academy for nearly ten years, with brief visits home as per his mother's tearful requests. "I wasn't wondering that at all. Because he's the one who threatened to kill her."

"He wouldn't have done it," Caius said again, shaking his head. "He isn't the type."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because _I'm _the type."

Hope let that sink in. "So why'd he even say it?"

"To scare you," Caius said at once. Hope wondered if it had been his idea. "Didn't it work?"

Hope looked down at his hands, thinking back to a piece of advice Caius had given him that still loomed large in his thoughts. "And why wouldn't you? Kill her, I mean."

If Caius thought this a strange question to ask, considering the obvious care Hope had for Lightning, he said nothing about it. "There'd be no point," he said, shrugging. "What would I gain by hurting her?"

"Besides upsetting me?"

"That hardly registers as something worthwhile."

_At least he isn't petty. _"A victory," Hope said, watching Caius' face for any change of expression, any hint at all that what Hope was saying too him by surprise. "You said it yourself. There can be no victory without blood."

"Her death would hardly be a victory," Caius said, and Hope caught the very gentle emphasis in the sentence.

_Then whose? Mine? _"So why am I here? Wherever... here is." Hope glanced at the white walls, the chipped ceiling, and the stone-still veil curtains that prevented him from getting a clear view into the world outside. He had an impression of a garden and lush, emerald moss carpeting the trunks of gnarled, brown trees, but nothing more. "Is it the other side again?"

"You ask an awful lot of questions," Caius said, smiling. It took Hope a minute to understand the expression on the man's face, and by the time he did it was long gone.

Pride. Caius was _proud _of him. "But how many of my answers are you actually _retaining_?" Caius asked.

"Do you want me to stand up and quote your own speeches back to you?" Hope asked, finding it incredibly difficult not to start thinking of ways to beg nicely for Caius to get the cage to expand. His neck was starting to hurt from having to sit slumped like this, and he could feel his back beginning to throb, starting at the base of his spine and radiating upwards. "Because I could, if you have that kind of time to waste."

"I don't, not really," Caius said.

"I ask questions because I want to hear from you," Hope said. "Not just you, but Yeul, too – when she was here, I mean. And also, obviously, because I want to know the answers. I don't have time to sit around and guess."

"Oh? Going somewhere?"

"Probably, yes."

"And where would that be?"

"Anywhere but here," Hope shot back, smiling with as much sarcasm and mockery as Caius had given to him since this discussion started. "Back to the other... opposite side of this place. … That would be reality, right?"

"It'd be one layer of it, yes," Caius said. Hope was grateful that he'd been making some kind of sense, that Caius had been able to understand a single word of what he said, because it wasn't making much sense in his own mind. "What makes you think you're going anywhere at all?"

There was no threat in the question, nor did Caius sound all that amused. It was merely a question that required an answer, as straightforward as it had been delivered.

"Well it's not like I intend to say here forever," Hope said, reaching out to give an experimental prod on the bars, not to pull them, just to test their oppressive, rigid stance. They were cold to the touch, chilling him like ice, and did not give way under his influence. "Besides, you'll let me out eventually."

"Will I?"

"One of you will. If not you then Yeul, and if not her, then probably Noel. You didn't drag me out of the Palace just to keep me inside a cage and let me rot away." But even as he said it, Hope realized he was basing this belief off of absolutely nothing. What little he knew about Caius, Yeul, and Noel suggested they were not in the habit of doing anything by halves. Dragging him into an alternate reality, supplying him with confusing answers to questions that never seemed fit to end – even haunting him throughout the real world in more than just memories had been an admirable display of commitment, as much as it was annoying. What Hope didn't understand was why they should care? Why attach their interest in any way whatsoever onto him, and onto Lightning as well? _I'm not the only one who defied death. I'm not even the most important person who fits that description. _He thought of Serah, frozen in her crystallized coma, a literal beacon inside of the absolute heart of darkness in the Palace. Little though he'd want her to be in danger, considering how dear she was not only to the Patron but to Lightning as well, Hope couldn't deny that it would make more sense to go after her. Her very existence was a rebellion against death.

_It runs in the family._

_Better get used to it – that sorta stuff runs in the family._

In the silence that followed, and the obvious pit of introspection that swallowed up Hope as it had done for Caius, the older man started to laugh. Like Lightning's weird, strangled laughing sobs, it sounded far more like a cry than anything else. "Your confidence is enviable – and very familiar, I might add," Caius said, propping his head against his bent knuckles as he leaned his elbow on the table. "You and Noel might get along well. I'll have to make sure he doesn't drop by too often to check on you."

"Maybe we will hit it off. Who knows," Hope said, shrugging as he lowered his hand to the ground again. "Oh, wait. I do. That whole kidnapping-hostage thing."

"You didn't seem to have any problem building a relationship with Lightning," Caius said, picking up the knife and flicking its blade open and shut, open and shut. The way the hinge sighed and the blade sprang free sounded like the knife was alive and breathing.

"That's different," Hope said. But too late did he realize what he should have asked was, _How is that the same thing?_

"Not the way I see it." Caius stood up, closed the knife, and dropped it onto the table next to an empty dish of sugar and a chipped, porcelain pitcher that once held milk. "Cool your heels in there for a while, Hope. We can discuss this at another time."

"Where are you going?"

"Away," Caius said, already at the door and reaching out to open it. He paused before stepping into the dark hall, as black as the night could look like velvet, and turned to consider Hope once more. "Relax. Try to get some rest. You might find it hard to come by in the days ahead."

"That doesn't make me want to relax," Hope said.

"That's your business," Caius said.

Hope waited, but Caius still hadn't left. "What is it?" he asked.

Caius' eyes became narrow points of ever dimming light. His face transformed with a look Hope might have called wariness if he weren't half sure that Caius would never show anything besides composed, smirking confidence to nearly everyone he met. "Earlier you asked me if I was God – still a flattering comparison, by the way. But I have to wonder... what do you know about God, Hope?"

Hope frowned. Earlier he might have said something like, _Not much. It's not like I even believe in the thing, anyway. _Earlier he might have asked, _What does that matter?, _not knowing why his opinion on the subject would have any weight to it whatsoever. But he knew better now. His dreams, and his experiences with the strange turns and shifts of his own mind had been lessons as valuable as all his years of study, with the added benefit of actually being remembered. And his time with Lightning was all the more precious now that its values could be put to another kind of test. Learning more than how to fight but how to _survive_, and how to look at the darkness winding ever closer and tighter around Eden and see how it had invaded nearly every corner of its society, starting from the man in charge of the city, hadn't been all for naught. Hope had taken something from the past miserable, impossible week, though he could hardly believe that so much could have happened in barely the time it took for the moon to change its face: he had learned to live up to his own namesake. He had learned to hope.

Caius was still waiting for his answer.

"I know that according to a dream I had, God's apparently laughing at me personally." Hope paused, waiting to see if Caius would make light of this statement. He didn't. He looked as calm and blank as a man waiting for the guillotine to strike – and it was in that moment that Hope realized how Caius looked when he was afraid: like a man facing death. "And I think... I _know _it has something to do with Lightning and me. Whatever's keeping us together across all those lives, like Yeul said – apparently that's got God in hysterics. And I'd appreciate a chance to get him to shut up about it – I don't feel like being on the receiving end of some cosmic joke."

Hope couldn't look at Caius anymore. The stone solid expression was somehow too terrifying and painful to behold. "But that said more about me than about God, right? Sorry," he added, when Caius stayed silent.

"Don't be," Caius said, turning away from Hope and facing the darkness of the hall outside. "It was rather enlightening. … Thank you."

The door was about to swing shut when Hope spoke again. He couldn't resist – he couldn't help it. "I know why you're keeping me in here."

"Do you?" Caius asked, not turning back.

Hope couldn't let him leave. Not yet. Not until it was said. "It's because you're afraid."

"I'm many things, Hope. But I am not afraid."

"You're lying."

Caius turned to peer at Hope from the shelter of the darkened hallway. "One might say that, yes." Hope couldn't see his face well enough to figure out what expression he wore, and his tone was far from helpful in conveying any emotion. He sounded almost bored.

"I'm saying it – me. Just me. I'm saying that you're afraid. You're lying and you're afraid."

Caius snorted. "And what do you think I'm afraid of? God or you?"

"That's what I want to know," Hope said.

"... Or are you wondering how much of a difference there truly is between God and _you_?"

Caius shut the door without waiting for Hope to respond. Considering the way his mouth had gone slack and his eyes wide, stricken with horror and the sort of fright that a lesser man might have laughed at, Hope wasn't likely to respond for some time.

* * *

"What the hell does _that _mean?" Hope asked the silence, once the horror and several hours passed. "Of course I'm different – I'm nothing like a god at all. I'm just... I'm human. I'm a Guardian," he added, because he was dangerously close to forgetting why that was even important anymore at all.

And besides, even if he were a thing _like _a god, surely Hope would have realized such a massive scale of power inside himself by now. Surely he wouldn't have even come so close to dying if he were a creature divine.

Right?

How could he forget something that important?

The answer came from the corner of his heart that couldn't be cheated. _"He's trying to get his soul back to you, and you are killing yourself without it."_


	14. Chapter 14 - Laces of Life

**Chapter 14 **– Laces of Life

Hope had to leave - that was his only thought, the one thing to comfort himself after Caius' disappearance and the nagging, gnawing worry that his bizarre question had left behind. _I have to get out of here. _

But how? It's not like he could snap his fingers and make the room change according to what he needed -

Hope blinked. Oh. Right.

_If Lightning can do it, then I can, too. _And, as Hope was determined to prove this to himself above all else, he didn't see why a thing such as lacking experience should stand in the way of tearing apart the basic laws of physics with his bare hands.

Making sure his hand didn't graze the sides of the cage, Hope reached out as far as his arm could stretch, looked at the knife Caius had left behind on the table, and _focused_. He couldn't move his arm much once it slipped through the gap: a few short, limited jerks was all the flailing he could manage, so any hopes he might have had of contorting himself to freedom had died en route to becoming a plan. But that didn't matter, he had a different idea now. _Get the knife. Get the room to bend. _He could do it. He must.

_If she can do it, then there's nothing stopping me. _Hope thought less of actually accomplishing the goal, of making the hard, simple rules of reality disappear for a few seconds so he could succeed in an otherwise impossible task, as much as he thought about what Lightning had done. It had been effortless, immediate, an act done on pure instinct. She'd reached out and twisted the world to keep him safe. So why couldn't he do the same, no matter _how _impossible it was?

But no one knew impossible like Hope Estheim. No one else was as unimpressed with the limits set by that word, considering his history with it. Leaving the shadow of his family's home had seemed an impossible thing as well, until he learned about the marvelous escape school could provide. That was a change Hope could control, an effort he could put out into the world and know safely, certainly, that some sort of reward could be returned. Hope hadn't studied so hard and raked in all sorts of monetary and academic accolades for the sheer pleasure of learning: he'd done it so he could escape, so he could find a place to belong. The same basic principles applied here: he didn't want to bend the room in half and get the knife to do any kind of harm with it, but to free himself, to do himself some bit of good that the universe hadn't seen fit to do on its own.

"That's not _exactly_ true," he muttered to himself, drawing his hand back so that it could rest on the edge of the cage just outside the bars for a few seconds before trying again. "Remember Light? Remember all those _other_ Lights?" Hope might not understand the current state of the universe's compassion, but he figured if there was any proof of it, he should look no further than Lightning's ever-present life.

Hope thought about all the different Lightnings he had seen in his visions from the Chaos, all the many ways they had been strong when faced with absolute agony. In silence, glowering and towering over anything particularly displeasing. Lips moving fast, delivering a speech that couldn't into carry through the Chaos to Hope's ears, but he didn't need to hear her words to know that all the conviction her heart was capable of feeling had been poured into them. He could see it on her face. A face that never changed throughout time, no matter the place. How many times and across how many lives had he seen that face, and was he always in awe at the courage thriving inside? He hoped so. He hoped that he never forgot to appreciate her, even if he didn't always _remember _her.

Hope sighed and relaxed his arm. The muscles were starting to ache, making his whole arm tremble down through his fingertips. His hand dropped once more, heavier this time and without much care given to the descent, and his fingers grazed the side of the cage –

Hope held his breath, chomping down hard on his bottom lip until he tasted more blood. He counted back from ten, waiting.

But the cage stayed the same size, and once he was sure it wouldn't surprise him he leaned his forehead against the cold, cool surface of the bars. So they could be useful for something else _besides _confining him. _Good. That's good, at least. _

How had she _done _it? Hope should have asked her... But it couldn't be so complicated if she could do it without a thought. And if Dysley, the Primarch, (or whoever he really was beneath that curiously chosen mask) if he could do it as well, so could Hope. He was determined to prove this fact even more when he had that old man to compete with.

Hope lifted his arm and thought once more about how Lightning had put up a fight at her contract signing, wondering if that had something to do with his current problem. What if the things you said and did before becoming a Guardian helped shape the type of Guardian you became? Lightning had fought even though she was looking a gentlemanly Death in the face, more interested in knowing what the catch was to his offer than in taking it for herself. And Hope... What had Hope done? Questioned, yes, but only so far as to make jabs and side-bar insults that helped no one, that accomplished nothing. And the Primarch had smiled and glossed over them as if he'd had experience with Hope's attitude before, as if he knew exactly what the younger man was going to say and could counter each point without even trying...

_How many times have I sat in that exact spot? _Hope wondered, all but clawing at the air in his desperation to get the room to move. _How many times have I looked the Primarch – whoever he really is – in the eye and said those exact same words? _And why had _that _never changed? Yeul had said his strange, knotted life all came down to choice – could his life really have been stitched from a nearly inseparably winding thread, without much variation to the tangles? So why would choices matter at all, if that's how his life had been planned?

Hope turned his reaching hand into a fist until he could feel his nails burning crescents into his palm. Then he relaxed, counted back from five this time, and tried again. He thought of Lightning's thunderous glares and the tempest that could cloud over her expression when a thought appeared, marring the once-clear surface of her mind and darkening her thoughts to a point where not even Hope could know how to get her out of it again. But he had tried. Hadn't he? He'd tried to give her some small shred of comfort, even if it was nothing more than a sputtering match inside an oppressive, enveloping dark. _I hope I helped you, Light. I hope you saw how much I wanted to. _

Not for the first time, Hope wondered where she could have come up with such a name for herself. _Lightning. _It was still beyond clear to him that her name was a _chosen _one, rather than given. What could her real name be?

Did it matter? Should it?

_Yeul told me to believe in Light above all else. How can I believe in a person when they don't even trust me enough to give their real name? _

Hope shook his head the second this thought was finished. He wanted to laugh. But instead he just held out his arm, waited until the trembles stopped, and focused again.

Because names and titles never mattered as much as the hearts and minds of the people beneath them. Guardian, Patron, Primarch – mother, father... Lightning, Hope. Even God. These were all just outer, tertiary labels, and not a proper way of defining the life inside.

Hope blinked, his body acting on a reflex as he placed his free hand on the cold, thick bars for further support. The room had actually _flinched _. He'd seen it.

Pulling himself close enough so he was flush against the bars, Hope dared to take a breath – and promptly lost it as the cage around him buckled. Hope's knees pressed against the unyielding bars, agony bleating out from his bones as he struggled to draw his legs up one at a time, pressing his knees to his chest. With both hands resting on their bent, bruised tops, Hope leaned his forehead against the back of his knees and sighed.

_Be careful, _he thought, too disappointed with himself to even shake his head. _Don't mess this up. You've come too far to let it all fall apart now. _

But how had he done it? Hope ran a hand over his face and tried to return his mind to the ground it had only just recently tread. _The irrelevance of names when it comes to a person's true value... Was that it? Could that really be it? It's not what you're called that matters, but who you _are. … Knowing the difference between what others _say _you are, and who you _see _yourself to be.

"_... Or are you wondering how much of a difference there truly is between God and _you_?"_

This time, Hope _did _laugh. There was a _world _of a difference – whole tangled, woven threads and fascinating arcs of lives Hope only half remembered living that separated him from anything like godhood at all. But perhaps the most glaring, damning proof Hope needed against the puzzle that Caius had left him with, was this one impassable belief that took root in his heart like a clenched, iron fist: _God doesn't suffer. God doesn't know a thing about suffering. That's a human condition. _And Hope had suffered. He _knew_ he had suffered – just as much as he knew he had only learned in this life to turn that into something else because Lightning had demanded it.

_I'm not God. I can't be. I'm just broken and stubbornly trying not to be. _

Hope repeated this thought under his breath and extended his hand once more, cautiously.

This time, it was the room and not the cage that buckled.

Hope laughed once, still cautious, but with a bit of cheer woven into the sound now. He could do this. He _had _done it, just now. And hell, who knows? In another life he'd probably done it dozens of times before.

_And I'll keep doing it, _Hope thought, smiling as he fought back another urge to laugh. _I'll keep trying, no matter how many lives or chances it takes. _Because maybe one time, one life, one _attempt _would be the one that got it right.

The room shifted closer, a nervous cat sidling up for a treat and a pat. Hope kept his eyes on the knife on the table, which swayed gently back and forth with every grab Hope made at the room. _Get it, _take _it. _His survival depended on this little, terrible thing. And he would make the effort count.

As if a giant had grabbed the floor and pinned it in half, the room suddenly folded up, bringing the table closer to Hope. Darting to his feet, Hope hadn't quite given much thought to the discrepancy between how much room he was allowed and how tall he was, and so he banged his head against the lid of the cage. Stars burst into life in the painful darkness that fell around his eyes, but he had no time to focus on the steady, bone-weary throb that ached down through the roof of his mouth. The knife was _right there _. He'd done it!

Now all he had to do was find a way out.

* * *

What lives on in a memory is immortal, unchanging and untouched. Even when forgotten on the surface of the mind the life inside of a memory cannot fade, the same way happiness can still take root even in the heart of despair.

That's what Lightning believed. You would know it if you asked her, and if she trusted you enough to share such a vulnerable sentiment. You'd have a better chance of hearing this if your name was either Serah or Hope, however.

This is what Lightning believed. It's what she taught herself to believe when the shadows came for her father years ago, snatching him away in the night. She'd watched him approach the little house from her bedroom window on the second floor as she usually did each time he came home late. She hid behind a curtain as pale as the tender white lilies he always brought home as gifts. It used to only be two, but in these past few months it grew to three, with her mother growing all the more large, too. Balloon-like, a little buoyant satellite that would share smiles and tender songs with both Lightning and the sister her mother and father swore was sure to come any day now.

"_You're going to be a sister soon. Isn't that exciting?"_

"_Why? How?"_ Lightning could never let a statement go unchallenged. It had to be prodded, questioned, flattened out and examined thoroughly before she could nod in any kind of satisfaction at its contents. She was likewise deadly serious about questions regarding dessert.

"_Well... When two people are in love, sometimes, if they want to, they can make something grow from that love."_

"_Like flowers?"_

"_Exactly, yes. Like flowers. Very good, Claire."_

"_Make sure you're this clever when your little sister comes home, okay? She's going to need you."_

"_Why? I don't wanna be needed."_

"_Because she's part of the family now. And family means being respon- it means you have a duty to each other. It means you love and protect each other. Never forget that."_

Little and young though she was, all Lightning – Claire, at that time – could do to protect her father was watch him come back home in the bruise-dark hour where the night crashes against the dawn, making the sky look like a wound. _That's how I'll keep him safe, _she thought that night just as she did every night, pinning her eyes to the man whose smile could stop any pain or fear. The man whose arms felt like the tethers of the world cradling Eden. _He won't be alone in the dark. I'll be there, watching him. _

Later, when he was long gone with no body left behind to bury, and his face was reduced to just a wide, loving grin in her memory, the kind Snow could only show to Serah oddly enough, Claire began to wonder if she had been misled. What if watching someone from the dark wasn't enough to ensure they'd be safe – because surely you couldn't protect someone if you did nothing. Her mother would be no help at all in trying to convince Claire of the opposite: she didn't even believe what Claire had sworn up and down to the police, to the doctors they made her see, and to Serah, the most important one of all, had happened.

"_Monsters came out of the dark and took daddy away. They stole him."_

"_You were just imagining it, Claire. You were only dreaming."_

She'd once read in a letter her mother kept safe inside the locked drawer in her bedroom that love lives in the eyes. It was written in a hand Claire didn't immediately recognize, though she knew it wasn't her mother's nor Serah's. "_Love looks with the heart and lives in the eyes, and there will never be a time when mine aren't full to the brim with love for you, for Claire, and for Serah, too. That's what you want to name her, right?" _Claire would remember these words even after she became Lightning, because it helped convince the child in her heart that her father had somehow known he wasn't alone when the shadows came to life and tore what parts of him they could use to grind to dust inside their ravenous, gaping jaws. These words helped convince Claire _and_ Lightning, even with her harder, colder heart, that her father had felt his first daughter's eyes on him that night and that he knew somehow, before the end, that he did not die alone. He may have died at the hands of a starving, famished fiend, but at least it was in the presence of someone he loved.

Claire was less sure that her mother had known this when her time came. She had died in the quiet, careful way the missing are assumed to have died, when years pass and there's little point in believing anything else could have happened to them. No one had been there to keep an eye on her then – no one had seen her at all. Claire was fifteen when it happened. Sometimes, even now, she believed her mother had only just run off in search of some kind of love, believing it to still be out there, somewhere – the way she'd started to believe her husband was, too. Claire wasn't even sure she had it in her heart to hate her mother for leaving – hate the pain it caused, yes. Hate the way Serah had cried, inconsolable and terrified, for weeks and weeks after both girls had given up hope that their mother would come home that night. But to hate her mother for believing in something impossible, anything at all, simply because it gave her hope? Claire couldn't do that. Because death, like goodbyes, was far too cold, too final, and much too sad.

Death for humans, anyway. For Guardians it didn't always have to be that way.

And when Serah had left the world, Claire – Lightning at this time – had known for a fact that Serah was aware of how much she was loved, because it was the love that had killed her in the end. _I hurt everyone that loves me just by being near them. _It was, perhaps, a selfish and simplistic way to reduce her sister's death, but Lightning couldn't see what had happened in any other way but this: she was cursed. Her love was a curse. To fall under the range of Lightning's love was little different than to stand in the way of her blade. You'd fall bleeding and battered all the same.

At least with Serah she'd gone down fighting, the way every Farron would, should, and did. Fighting shadows, the Chaos – fighting against fear and doubt and a future full to the brim with both. Fighting against the fate that burned for them in the stars, because there was no terror so deep as the one that grips the heart after it's given up. That had to count for something.

And when it came to Hope... Lightning simply didn't know. She wondered if Hope knew how dearly, desperately, and borderline despairingly he was loved, and by no one else but herself. He might have a friend or two that cared for him – in this life, he might even have something like a lover. She hadn't asked. She hadn't wanted to be told. But Lightning believed, simply because she had to at this point, that the love she had for him was the only thing left that couldn't be corrupted, that would not be taken apart by its own destructive purpose. But the way he'd been taken – the violence of it, the quickness, and the way her words had been ineffective, as always, cut a hole in the heart of her happiness. _He didn't see me. He didn't see me before he left. He wasn't looking at me. _So how could he have known? Could he even guess the way she felt?

But really, why should he? It wasn't as if Lightning had been _stable _or even remotely reassuring in their last moments together. _He was afraid. Confused and afraid. You don't waste a loving thought on someone who confuses and scares you. _

"Isn't that right, Serah?" Lightning asked, holding her sister's pale, frozen hand inside both of her own. She was alone inside of the room Snow had set up as a loving altar to Serah's memory, having run here the minute Hope had vanished in the darkness. After listening to Lightning through her panic and her strained, furious voice, Snow had asked her to keep watch over Serah, a maddeningly kind request on his part.

"_You've lost your hope again, huh, Sis?"_

How could he have known – or did he even know? It was so hard to tell, the way his mind was these days. If it wasn't grief that distracted him, it was the darkness he insisted on conjuring inside of Serah's make-shift tomb. It was a part of Snow's Arte that Lightning hadn't properly understood until it was too late to talk him out of using it. So she argued about the little things instead. _"He's not mine and I'm not your sister." _

"_You're as good as – even Serah says so."_

"_Did she now?" _Lightning wouldn't believe it, no matter how convincingly Snow smiled at her in his wasted, once-handsome face.

"_You really should listen to her more often. Give her a chance."_

"_She's not the one who needs it." _And there was something on Lightning's face, or perhaps in her tone, that made Snow look up for the first time with an expression like clarity. For a wild, awful second Lightning remembered the way he used to be before Serah was taken away: a mind that was quicker than others gave it credit for, with a heart too small for all the love it contained.

And he was looking at _her _.

"_Let me take care of whatever's got you lookin' so glum. Okay, Light?" _He'd so rarely called her anything but her full, chosen name, or the frustratingly intimate _Sis_. This nickname was almost too much – too kind, too generous. Especially when she didn't deserve it.

_I failed him. I let Hope down. The one thing I wanted to do – the one thing I _had _to do – and I fucking failed. _Lightning's bitter laugh hadn't been enough to take that loving, sweet smile off of Snow's face, but his eyes had gone hollow again, letting her know the shadow of his former self had faded. _"Sure, if you think you're up to the job, hero." _

And she'd looked down, away from that smile, away from those sad eyes so full of love, to take in her sister's peaceful, face – and she'd gasped. Because she was sure Serah was _smiling _.

Lightning knew that smile. Pityingly kind, with just a hint of hesitation around the edges. _It's the last smile she ever gave me. _Snow had left, acting as if he hadn't seen anything.

"Isn't that right?" Lightning asked again, running her thumb along the side of Serah's cold hand, not expecting an answer, not expecting anything at all. _I may as well be talking to a doll. _The smile was gone from Serah's face now. She still looked peaceful, serene and complete, the way the dead ought to be. Lightning couldn't help but keep her hand in its chosen place now that the contact was made. She was starting to understand, just a little bit, how Snow could convince himself that Serah was still alive somewhere inside: just being near her was enough to give someone's heart a lift, the same way her laugh or her voice or her simple, patient presence had done while she was alive.

Lightning couldn't stop herself from talking now that the words were slowly coming free. They were words with no consequence or power, merely bits of dust flying off on the wind. "I wonder how long I'll keep letting you all down," she said to Serah, to whatever was left of Serah inside. She said this to Snow, wherever he was in the Palace, conferring with the Conseil about what had gone wrong. She said this to Hope, wherever he was – she had to believe he could hear her now. "And when can you start forgiving me for it?"

* * *

Keeping the knife clear of the bars and on the opposite side of the cage, Hope opened the blade with a slow, curious tug. The violence in him, not seen in its full fury since the fight in the morgue, considered for an angry, isolating second to hold off using the knife for anything until Caius come back.

"But that won't work," Hope argued at once. "Besides, it's senseless. He put me in a cage because he thought I might get _fussy_. If he sees me with a weapon he'll – probably just kill me."

With a reluctant hand, Hope closed the knife again and shut his eyes, needing the relief of darkness more than he did revenge. "Don't let him be right."

Which was all well and good – but he still had to get out.

An idea began to crawl through Hope's fast-fading post-victory glee. He had the knife, this clever little token of survival, but what good would it do him now that he vowed not to use it for its designed purpose? Hope had no other choice but to wait for Caius to return with more drawling sneers, sarcasm, and head-spinning answer – except for finding a way to be clever. But what? And how?

_Turn that energy into something useful, _Lightning said, the Lightning that Hope kept alive inside his head. And he would listen to her, always.

Hope opened the knife again and stared at it in silence, noticing a few more crucial details now that it was up close. The serrated parts of the blade, which he had once compared to teeth, now seemed more like the teeth to a _key _with a series of mismatched nubs, ranging from long to short, broken nodes. His reflection in the blade looked wan, his eyes unnaturally sunken and lined with dark smudges, the beginning of bruises. Dried blood like flakes of ruse coated his nose and upper lip, and he tried to smile, eager to see if the damage Noel had done had gone so far as to knock out a tooth. They all _seemed _to be fine...

_Stop wasting time and get out of here. _

"But how?"

Caius could be back at any minute. _Or worse, Noel. _Despite Caius defending the younger man as a brave, hell-bent, stalwart heart who saw the honor in a duty so grim, Hope could not exactly accept this way of thinking. Not yet. Not until he saw some evidence to back it up. It was like the NORA branch of the Conseil all over again –

Instinctively, Hope held his free hand to his heart, feeling for that little silver bauble Maqui had sworn was a comms-link, a life-line – and one of a set. _Lightning should have the other one, _Hope realized, his hand shaking as he dug the fragile little node from its place of peace near his heart. There was an incredibly small chance that it would even work here, wherever Hope _was_. He was sure that since the basic laws of physics could be manipulated in this place, whatever technical ingenuity Maqui had applied to the device couldn't carry over. That brand of power would always bend and pale in the name of a greater, stranger force.

The little star-shaped trinket looked lonely in Hope's hand. He ran his finger across the fine edges, wondering if there was a trick involved in getting it to work. Couldn't he manipulate it the same way he'd done for bending the room?

Which is when the door to his room opened slowly, showing only a dark, empty hall outside, before Yeul's face appeared in the crevice.

Hope hadn't been able to hide either the knife nor the comms-link in time, and Yeul considered Hope's briefly defiant expression with her calm, measured gaze. She wore a rose-colored veil this time, which was decorated along its trim by a bright, scarlet-red thread that made her eyes stand out like polished gems. She seemed absolutely disinterested in the knife, much less the fact that Hope had bent the room in half, causing a long, thin tear along the floor that ended at the gossamer curtains standing sentinel on the wall opposite from the door. What _did _interest Yeul was the comms-link in Hope's hand.

_If she asks me to explain myself, I just won't answer, _Hope decided, watching with wary eyes as Yeul slipped into the room, silent, curious, and shut the door behind her. _I won't say a word. _

Yeul approached Hope's cage on steps light enough to be whispers, her skirts swaying petal-like with every movement she made. She looked very much the same from the last time Hope had seen her: somber, with a grace to her that felt carved out of the very bones of Time Immemorial. Only her veil was different, darker, and so starkly lined with red that it looked as if blood had seeped into the airy soft fabric. Only when she was within reach of the cage did Hope realize another change in her: It was her eyes. All trace of her former sadness was gone.

Yeul gestured to the comms-link still sitting in Hope's open, waiting hand. "Do you need some help with that?" she asked.

"What?" Hope forgot his promise as soon as it was made. He hadn't expected her to say _this_. "What did you say?"

"You have a communication link," Yeul said, pointing at it flat out. "Disguised as a pin to wear on a lapel. And it won't work here, not unless I fix it."

"Why would you do that?"

"So you can use it."

"And why would you _want _that?"

"To see what you do with it," Yeul said. She lowered her hand, reflecting. "Oh, I see. You don't trust me."

"Should I?"

"Would you believe me if I let you out of the cage?"

"Not exactly," Hope said, not sure if he was understanding her properly. _It's a trick, a game. It has to be. It doesn't make any sense. _"Especially since you're one the people responsible for putting me in here in the first place."

Yeul's dark eyebrows furrowed over her deep green eyes. Her one hand was on the lock to the cage already, while the other reached into a little satchel that was attached to one of the thin, bead-fused belts that cinched her blouse in at the waist. Her clothing somehow glowed, along with the porcelain cast of her skin – it was eerie, unreal. "This wasn't my idea," she said, and for the first time Hope saw an actual look of anger flash across her delicate face. "Caius decided it. Not me. Even Noel thought it was going too far, but Caius doesn't always listen to us."

Hope was struck at the way Yeul's voice had softened around Noel's name, noting that she had joined herself to him by use of the plural. He didn't let it slip his notice that the dynamic between the trio, which he had once thought hinged entirely on Yeul's every gentle command, seemed to be skewed more often than not. "He was just in here a little while ago."

"I know. I told him to wait for you here."

"Why?"

Yeul held up a small bronze key for inspection. "A man who locks up another should have the courage to look him in the eye. … No, not courage. _Decency _. Caius is seldom not brave."

"But not always a nice guy," Hope said, catching that thread. "Yeah. I know. I gathered. Why do you keep him around, anyway?"

The lock on the cage opened with a snap and Yeul stepped back, pulling the door open as she did. "We are bound together, Hope. He, myself, and Noel. We are the only family left to each other now, as much as we are comrades in arms."

Hope didn't move. "He mentioned that, too," he said. "He said you were Guardians of Death. So what do you fight against? Life?"

"Not life," Yeul said. "Immortality. The unnatural, unceasing essence of a single life beyond its allotted time." She waited. "You're free now, Hope. You can leave. I won't trick you."

"It actually feels a bit safer in here now."

Yeul considered him carefully. "Hope. _Please_." She held out her hand, unwavering even under Hope's narrowed, doubtful stare.

Despite himself, Hope reached out for a second – and then drew it back. He dropped the comms-link into her hand instead. "What'll you do to it?" he asked.

"Something useful," she said, and nothing more. Hope could see her smile through the veil she wore, a tender, warm thing that made him remember the kindness she'd last shown him. He would trust in that if nothing else.

"… Be careful with it," he said. "Please." _It's the only tie to Lightning I have left_, he wanted to add, but couldn't find the courage to be so weak.

Yeul nodded and raised her other hand in a terrifyingly slow gesture, her fingers clawing at the red thread woven into the edge of her veil. She began to pull out the small thin yarn as if extracting a long, stubborn seam from its stitchwork home. Hope shuddered at the sight: her wide, unblinking eyes, her mechanical, steady gesture, the calm, utterly unconcerned way she could pluck out this vital little cord as if the damage its removal would leave behind meant nothing to her, nothing at all. In that moment, Hope understood who was the most fearsome of the trio: Caius and Noel, for all their brutality or pomposity, simply couldn't compare to the quiet fury Yeul revealed in that moment.

It reminded him of Lightning.

* * *

Lightning's free hand found the necklace she always wore on a thick silver chain, both charm and necklace heavy like a hand clawing at her throat. The charm at the end was a bolt of light, like an idea that strikes the fertile soil ground of a curious mind, giving it ideas and life that would otherwise be impossible. She'd gotten it during her first few weeks in the Palace employ, before Hope had come along. Maqui must have forgotten that he'd given her one half of the comms-link already, having purposely designed it so she could wear it freely and hidden. Or perhaps he had given Hope a different set. She didn't want to put too much weight behind that idea. _Let it be the same one, _she pleaded to no one, to everything. _Let it be the same._

Lightning always toyed with the necklace when her thoughts became too thick, her ideas sluggish and unsure. Inspiration, like hope, could take even the most weary minds unaware, filling it with a light so strong it drove out the shadows of every dark, aching doubt. And Lightning certainly needed inspiration now – she need an idea, _any _idea, no matter how small, that would set her on a path back to Hope.

"Snow and the Conseil can only do so much," she said, both to herself and to Serah, not liking the note of apology in her voice. _You can't make the dead forgive you, Claire. Stop it. _"They've already got their hands full trying to cover up that massacre at the hospital. Asking them to track down Hope would be a waste of their already limited resources."

Lightning shook her head hard, biting the inside of her cheek. "I know that," she said, spitting the answer back at herself. "I _know. _But still..." _They'd found him before. _In another life where everyone had been exactly as they were in all the ways that mattered, but with the crucial, cutting difference of forgetting they'd ever met, they'd always find Hope, always find a way to keep him safe. Lightning was the only exception to both the block on the memory and the safe-keeping: she seemed more prone to fail at it no matter how much she wanted to succeed. The Chaos that had taken Hope in those times had stirred almost all of Eden to into a fury at the loss of their leader. He was the Patron in those lives, usually. Sometimes they even called him the Primarch, but Lightning remembered the way his face grew dark with a shadow that went beyond words each time the title was used, as if he was remembering something else, something too awful...

This version of Eden, however, seemed cradled in lies and secrets, like a child who clamored for a fairytale all the while the claws and fangs of reality were scratching at their door, demanding entry. It was stupid of her to trust Snow to get things right this time. He had no idea where to even look, didn't even know the first thing about _this_ Hope. And Lightning wasn't sure where to start trying to describe him to someone else. _He's scared, so scared it's like your heart will break from your need to keep him safe. And sometimes he can be so sad it's as if no words in the world will ever get him to smile again – but he'll find a way to try. He always does. Because he never gives up. And he can be brave no matter how many times he's scared – not because he needs to be, but because he knows better than anyone else how to turn fear into strength. _

Lightning stared at Serah's face, waiting for a change to come over her again, but her sister hadn't moved at all. Not since the smile from before. "He's alone now. He's all alone, even though I promised to keep him close. And I'm counting on _Snow _to bring him back." She wanted to laugh, and she would have if, in that moment, the darkness in the room hadn't tightened around her like a shroud thrown over the dead. Lightning would have raised her hands, one to tear open a pocket of light to unsheathe her sword, and the other to stave off any threat that sought her immediate harm and pain – but her hands were caught inside of Serah's icy, relentless grasp.

Nothing else about Serah had changed except for this. It was as if the sisters had been locked together all along.

"Serah? You're not –"

"_Wait here. Stay with me."_

That couldn't be Serah. It couldn't be. But Lightning recognized the voice immediately, tears brimming over to blind her as she stared, transfixed. "For what?" she asked. _It isn't Serah. It isn't. She's dead and I can't bring her back. _

"_You'll see_." The Chaos that had swallowed up Hope was drawing closer and tighter around the sisters now, like a pair of strong arms cradling them. Lightning shut her eyes.

_This isn't real. I'm dreaming – this is a dream. When I open my eyes again I'll be with Hope. _Lightning could feel Serah's hands tighten around her wrists, as if in response to the thought – but to comfort her or challenge? _When I open my eyes, everything will be like it was – only I'll be with him again. _

She was only half right.


	15. Chapter 15 - Hope Springs Eternal

**Chapter 15 - **Hope Springs Eternal

Hope took a few cautious steps out of the cage, half expecting it to swing shut in his face and for the world around him to collapse into a nightmare. His luck so far seemed to make this a real enough chance that he found it almost impossible to drive the thought away – of course it would happen. Of course.

But it didn't. The door did not close at all, but remained open, allowing him to pass to freedom. His shoulders relaxed and he took in a long, thankful breath once he was clear of the cage, his eyes fixed onto Yeul. How could her eyes be so alive, burning and brilliantly bright, while her face remained a perfect replica of a mask? Hope couldn't understand it. He wasn't sure where to begin trying. He wondered if this was a change in Yeul that her tenure as a Guardian had done to her – she couldn't have been that way before the contract was made. Right?

And who _did _she make the contract with? Who in the world – or beyond it, considering the current topic – could grant someone the power to watch over death? Hope was starting to wonder if he should revise his earlier conviction that there wasn't such a thing as God. _But why would God need someone to mind the dead for Him? Shouldn't that be part of His job?_

"Thank you," Yeul said.

"What for?" he asked, startled.

"For trusting me." She smiled a small, charming smile, like a tiny sickle curve that brightened her pale round face. It brought her to life, and made Hope relax.

"Thank you for being trustworthy," he said. And he meant it, truly. There was a kindness to Yeul that made Hope think of Vanille, in the sort of mad, dashing thought that fluttered fast, faded soon, and whose remnants lingered long after. There was something about death to both women, a connection that Hope couldn't quite figure out without another element to the puzzle inserted in. Both they also possessed a sort of kindness that could only grow in the heart of a person who laments, regrets, and uses that pain to restore others. Vanille's pain seemed to come from an amnesia forced upon her, dear memories that were eroded away in the teeth of an unknown fiend, as well as the grief that came with having to be the true Patron to Eden, while the man in name alone was lost in days of madness and tears. So what could be hurting Yeul so much? And why couldn't Caius or Noel help her?

"We've little time to waste," Yeul said, "And so much to do in the time we have."

"Better get moving then," Hope said, nodding. "Feel free to tell me whatever it is you have planned. Since you took the time to drag me here."

Yeul laughed once, shaking her head. "Understood. It's all been a bit rushed and strange this time for you. Hasn't it?"

"I guess..."

Hope watched as Yeul took the thread recently removed from her veil and began to wind it carefully around her fingers in delicate, elegant twists. It was no different from how Hope remembered his mother beginning to thread a needle when her sewing machine was on the fritz. He'd always been intrigued by how even the most terrifying repair jobs could be handled with all the ease and finesse of a deft, patient hand. It made the damage seem almost negligible in comparison.

Yeul held up the comms-link he'd given to her and waited. Hope nodded once, not quite understanding what he was exactly agreeing to, but the fact that she'd waited for his silent permission made him regret his earlier, harsh tone with her. _She wants to help. I don't know why she does, but she wants to and she's trying, and that has to mean something. _The readiness to try meant all.

Yeul slowly wriggled her thread-bound fingers back and forth until the end of the crimson strand dangled free, hanging directly over one of the comms-link's points. Carefully, the way funeral attendants would entomb the dead in a commemorative shroud, Yeul began to wind the red thread around the first point until it was completely covered, then moved on to the next point, then the next, and the next... Hope thought again of spiders crouched in the center of their sanctuary webs, before a kinder image offered itself from the depths of his mind. A weaver, someone carefully drawing all the frayed, dangling strands together and creating something whole out of all the old, lonely parts. That's what she was.

That's what Yeul did. That's what Yeul _was._

"Where did you learn to do that?" he asked.

"It's not _where _I learned it that matters," Yeul said, looking at him. Clearly that was meant to be a hint.

Hope considered this. "When?" he guessed. "Why?"

She gave the smallest of nods. "Because I _chose _to. And because I must."

"How are those two the same thing?"

"Because if I made a decision to do something, then it's only because I felt sincerely compelled to do it. Even if it was the only option left for me, it's a choice with consequences for which I will take full responsibility. Consider it at a way of being... Duty-bound and honor-tied." Yeul glanced at the comms-link, wrapped and tethered in its red thread. Another hint.

_Like Cocoon, _Hope thought, remembering the bedtime story his mother would tell him, as well as the symbol on the Patron's buckle. _Tied by invisible lines, balancing on a need-thin point of a knife._

Yeul continued. "In a way, I was betrothed."

"Married?" Hope echoed, confused. Had she meant some other word? Hope held out both his hands for the thread-bound star once Yeul was finished, accepting it gladly. "To your work?"

Yeul gave Hope a tender, almost pitying smile as she relinquished the newly transformed device. Was it just his imagination or could Hope actually _feel _power surging through this tiny, impossible thing? Keeping her eyes pinned to Hope's curious gaze, Yeul shook her head. "To my Arte," she said.

That hadn't been the first time Hope had heard the word. "What is it?" he asked. "Artes, I mean. I have some kind of idea but..."

"But you're still unsure," Yeul finished.

It wasn't quite what Hope had wanted to say, but he nodded all the same.

"It's a Guardian's naturally embedded talent. It emerges once their power does. Some have the gift of cleverness in combat, others possess the mental capacity for sussing out wounds that aren't easy to recognize. Others still are a bit more... complicated." She tilted her head and examined him as if studying the details of his very bones. "Self-serving, but not selfish."

"And what's yours?" he asked, if only to get her to stop looking at him like that.

"What would you say it is?" she countered.

_Being cryptic and weird, _he thought, but this was a childish response, a barbed comment made in silence that would help nothing, and offer him no insight if he dared to share it aloud. _Reaching into dreams and making ties between thoughts and waking lives. _That seemed a bit closer to the truth, but there was still something about her question and her expression that made Hope reconsider his answer carefully. He was well aware of the cage behind him, its door hanging open like a suggestion of further imprisonment, just as he was aware of the way Yeul stood almost a head shorter than him. Dainty, doll-like, but far from dismissible.

He thought of his conversation with Caius._ The difference between who you say you are, and what others think you to be. _If Hope had to guess, that "difference" was really nothing more than a gap in which despair and anger could take root, a gap from which misunderstandings were born or forced into being. Caius had seemed deadset on leaving Hope with such an impression, as well as the biting sting that came along with being subtly accused of something he didn't even properly understand. He really ought to have kept that last comment to himself. Unless...

Perhaps it didn't matter what Hope thought about Yeul's power – perhaps it didn't matter what name he'd give it, and what label that name would carry, a judgment call however kindly it was meant. All that mattered was what she did with it. All that mattered was what Yeul chose to do with whatever Arte came naturally to her.

And the same could apply to Hope – once he figured out what, exactly, his Arte _was. _To say nothing of solving the riddle Caius had left him with. Earlier he'd thought it had something to do with his way of turning that awful, oppressive weight inside his thoughts into something useful – now he wondered if that wasn't just some bland excuse to get himself motivated to a cause. _It has to be something else, something less obtuse – even if it is self-serving._

"It's not what I thought it would be, that's for sure," Hope said, sincerely wishing the response came out as kindly as he meant it to. But he was not always the best with his words, not always capable of harnessing the full power of comfort he'd quite happily lend out to someone else, provided it could be given back to him in return. He glanced down at the comms-link, wrapped up completely in the red thread. "So... How _did_ you fix this?"

"You ask an awful lot of questions whose answers you aren't really interested in hearing," Yeul said. Her voice was rather calm for a person who'd just said Hope was a fool for wondering about anything in the first place.

Hope stared at her. "Then what _should _I be asking?"

"What you really want to be told," she said. Then she pointed at the comms-link. "Consider that something of a parting gift and a potential offering. Keep it close and remember where it is when the time comes. Because the time _will _come. It usually does."

This wasn't exactly the answer Hope had been looking for – but it _was_ an answer on what to do with it next, which he had been wondering.

"We should be leaving soon," she added.

"You're sending me back." It wasn't a question. Hope didn't think he could stand to phrase it as anything else but a polite demand.

She hesitated for half a second. Then Yeul shook her head, slowly. "No... Not yet. You're here for a reason, you know. You _need_ to be here. _We _need you to be here."

"Why?" he asked, closing his fist around the comms-link tight enough to make it crack. But his anger could not break it. It had a power of its own, acting in defiance of Hope's. "Do you have oblivion cores here too?" he demanded, sarcastic.

It had been an offhand comment, not one he entirely believed could be true – until he saw the look on Yeul's face, and that stopped him cold.

"You do, don't you?" he asked, stunned.

"We have... Infections," she said. "Damaged points that are festering and spreading their influence along the time-line."

"Which line?"

"Every line. Yours. Lightning's. The Patron's. Even my own and Noel's."

"And Caius, too?"

Yeul nodded.

"So why can't you three take care of it from here?"

"That is not our Arte," she said simply – or was it stiffly? Hope noticed a distinct little clip in her response, as if she'd rather not have to explain this – or like she'd explained it several times before.

"So you want me to take care of the 'infection' here. Is that why Caius and Noel dragged me off?"

There was just the slightest delay in Yeul's response, a silence that lasted a beat too long. "Yes," she said.

"Then why not take Lightning, too? She's been doing this Guardian stuff a lot longer than I have," Hope said, gaining momentum with the logic behind this thought. "I could even go back for her – that way we can both work it out together. It'll be done quicker if there's more than one person; I don't know how much of a chance I have if I fight alone. I don't even know what my Arte is yet."

He'd started talking in the hopes of convincing Yeul to see his side, but he could tell even before the end of his argument that there was no use in trying. Yeul's expression hadn't changed much since he began to talk, except that her eyes burned brighter – and it was then that Hope realized she was trying not to cry.

"You're upset," he said, shocked that she could be, shocked that he could _make _her be, especially when he hadn't even tried at all.

"Lightning... Can't come here," Yeul said, shaking her head softly so that her hair rippled down her back. "You're the only one who can see this task through to the end, Hope. You're the only one we can rely on to complete it. There really is no one else left."

Gone were the days when Hope would have either scoffed or seethed in silence at this misplaced idea of his own importance. He knew better than to question the value others had in him – had learned it since the moment he woke up in the hospital with Lightning at his side, the one sure thing reminding him of a world alive behind the haunting specters and pain. Though it'd taken him some time to come around to the way of thinking that he could be useful, Hope hadn't quite realized just _how _yet.

But that wasn't what mattered. Not now, and not anymore. There was something else in Yeul's response that stopped his heart cold. A suggestion lay behind the word _can't _in relation to Lightning, something grim and terrible. Something Yeul was not so skilled at hiding.

Hope found himself asking a question whose potential answer filled him with dread. "What about Light – has something happened to her?"

Her silence may as well have been a screaming assent.

Hope didn't realize he had grabbed her shoulders until he felt the delicate bones squeezed beneath his hands. It was as much for his balance as it was to impress a point on her, and he made sure to keep his tone steady and his temper in check as he leaned down and peered straight into Yeul's eyes. "Tell me. Tell me _right now, _or else I won't do a damn thing to help any of you."

Yeul nodded, tears in her eyes again. "Follow me," she said, and without a backwards glance, led Hope out of the room and into the hall.

–

The man who called himself the Primarch was now standing in front of Lightning, clutching her hands as Serah had done only moments ago. Not for the first time in her long and winding life, Lightning looked without fear into his eyes, wondering which was his honest face: the old, withered man Hope had seen at his contract signing or the one she was seeing now. _Why does he have to hide all the time? _She thought, thinking of his fondness for tricks and traps, his gift of deceit, cleverness, and infiltration. It was almost like an art. And yet he was still the same man who had appeared before her when she signed the contract, the same man who had helped make the exchange that, at the time of its creation, seemed to carry little consequence, and greater gain: One life across many lines, to find what she loved and keep it close. Being deathless seemed a fair thing to exchange for a chance like that - hadn't she already survived death, anyway?

Lightning had hoped she'd long since grown used to his habits, to detecting them when they appeared before her. She hoped she'd be able to recognize when they could appear, even if she hadn't quite figured out why he bothered doing it at all. Fear seemed possible. Cruelty was more likely. Just plain boredom seemed too grim to consider, even for her. _What could be so terrible about his face that he'll hide _that_, but make absolutely no effort to change his behavior?_

"Put me back," she said at once. "I _want _to go back."

"I was doing you a favor, Light. You weren't making much progress," the man said. "In fact I think it'd be more fair to say you were failing quite impressively this time through."

His insults would sting if she cared about his opinion. She used to once, long ago, when she thought he had any interest in actually lending her advice. But Lightning had long since learned the man shared his thoughts not to guide anyone, but simply for the pleasure of hearing himself talk. _He wants me to fail. He wants me to stay trapped. That's all he's counting on._ "I don't care."

"You should. I would, if I were you."

Lightning tugged hard, trying to free her hands. "Put me back," she said again. "Hope's still there waiting for me, and I won't leave him behind."

"We can both wait for him here," the man with the porcelain doll's face said – this time with Hope's voice. "There's something I have to say to Hope, too."

"What's that?" she asked, throwing the question out like a challenge. His new voice startled her, as well as his choice to use it. _He wants to scare me. He _wants _to throw me off. _So she had done the first thing to knock him back, an instinctive, kneejerk reaction that put some breathing space between herself and her fear. Lightning didn't _really_ want to know, but she was well aware he would find a way to share the dreadful answer with her all the same. Better to ask for it first than let him think he was going to surprise her later.

The man leaned in close, putting his face as near to hers as he dared - and he dared to do very much. With his hot, stinking breath fanning over Lightning's face, she stared at him, refusing to flinch or blink, refusing to show anything but the typical expression of disgust she wore whenever they met face to face like this in his wretched domain. It wasn't Lightning's first time in the Void Beyond, but it was the first time he'd dragged her here without warning – it made her hope that she had done something different this time through. Something that worried him.

But then he spoke, and Lightning's heart became clouded by doubt.

"_I won._"

In a voice as soft as velvet and unyielding as steel, the part of Lightning's heart where Serah still lived said, _Not as long as I'm still breathing, creeper._

And far off, aware of what he was seeing without fully understanding what was being seen, Hope's only thought was: _Not if I can help it. Not if I can stop you_. Rebellion ran in the Farron family, the same way lightning flashes across the heavy, dreadful clouds that swallow the sun. Bright, blinding, and wickedly fast, this instinct to overthrow, to not be ruled by anyone but their own selves, was as true to the Farron family name as their genetics – and it inspired even honorary members like him. Hope, like rebellion, springs eternal - both the word and the man.

–

"What is this? Where is she?" Hope asked, watching the vision in the Chaos.

"Purgatorium," Yeul said, standing next to him in front of the open door. It was only a few doors down from the room Hope had awoken in, but it opened into a sight unlike any he'd seen – a void, black and formless, full of sights and sounds like memories divided and put on display to play like home movies. Hope didn't bother wondering how such a thing were possible – impossibility seemed to be the one thing to rely on in a place like this – as much as he wondered _why _it was happening.

_And why Lightning? Why to her?_

Yeul continued to speak, interrupting the heavy blot of Hope's thoughts. "In some stories it goes by other names. You may have heard of one before. No? Let's see. The Void Beyond. Plains of Eternity. Valhalla. No matter what title it holds, its purpose is the same. It's an imprisoning realm beyond the world of Eden, but rooted to her the same way a parasite clings to its innocent host."

Hope considered this. "Is that like where we are, too?" he asked, his eyes on Lightning's face. _Can she feel me? Does she know I'm watching over her?_

Yeul shook her head. "No. This is a sanctuary we helped make to overlook the hell she's in, a place where neither time nor death can touch – and that goes as well for the one who reigns there. We were careless to let such a cancer bloom, but... That's in the past now. What matters is we won't make that mistake again."

This "answer" felt more like a riddle than Hope would have preferred. "A place that's timeless and deathless... Is that where we are, you mean?" Hope wasn't sure if he understood her. She could speak so strangely sometimes, as if her every word was a recitation of some kind of ancient song or prophecy.

"No," Yeul said again. "Time has no power here, but Death is triumphant. As you should know." There was just a slight emphasis on the word that Hope thought it was different from the earlier sentence. "This sanctuary – Memoria, I should have told you earlier that we have a name for it now – deals in dreams and visions, but never _illusions_. Reality isn't always kind, but it'll never lie to you - and neither will death, nor its Guardians. But you... The you who you are not, the you that wants you back again, has built a kingdom made entirely to reconfigure itself at her every wish. A kingdom to keep her safe, to keep her close – to keep her trapped."

"Purgatorium. Yeah, I get it. And that's where Lightning is," Hope said, catching on at last.

Yeul nodded. "Even God Himself can become a devil for love."

"So how do I stop him?" It wasn't a question of _if _Hope could do it, merely a question of _how_.

"Do you really not know how to stop yourself?"

"But I'm not like that! I'm not like him at all."

"Then perhaps it's time you start to consider what you _wouldn't _do – who you wouldn't be, who you choose _not _to be – in order to guess at what to do next."

Hope pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes, and let out a long, exhausting sigh. "Fine. As long as it gets me back to her, fine. I'll do it. I don't care." Hope opened his eyes and lowered his hand, closing the other around the comms-link. He squeezed it tight, and then tucked it back into the pocket next to his heart. He caught the look on Yeul's face before it faded, just barely covered by the veil. "What?" he asked softly. "What is it?"

The corner of Yeul's mouth twitched, like a moth's wing stirring to life. "... You reminded me of Noel just then. Sometimes I forget that it isn't a trait belonging only to him. That it's a constantly occurring habit in every human heart."

"What is?"

"Hope," she said. And he waited, uncertain if she meant himself or the word.

"Can I see him?" he asked, once he was certain that her long pause meant she was talking about the word and not himself. Strange though it was to ask anything of the people holding him hostage, Hope figured it couldn't hurt to at least _try._

"You'll want to get cleaned up first," Yeul said, glancing at the dried blood on his face and the bruises around his eyes. At least she hadn't said no.

"Yeah, that's nothing new," he mumbled, passing a hand down his face. Maybe he should try out another trick, seeing as he could actually make them work in his favor now. And healing would be vastly more useful than twisting a room around topsy-turvy. _Vanille _and _Light made it seem so easy – I should be able to figure it out, too. _Was that his Arte? Learning and adapting what he saw? In that case, he should have a rather impressive store of skills at his disposal already, ranging from Lightning's prowess in battle to whatever charm Yeul had cast on the thread pulled off her own veil.

"Will you hurt him?" she asked. It clearly wasn't a request, but a plea that couldn't help baring itself.

"No, I won't," Hope said. "I don't want to, I mean. So I don't think I will."

Yeul regarded him carefully, her eyebrows raised. Seeing her standing there dressed in glimmering weight with a half-shorn veil, tattered and battered as it was, gave off a slightly disturbed air in direct contrast to her placid expression and the usual gentleness that she exuded. Hope told himself not to worry, not to be afraid. She was helping him. She _wanted _to help him, ever since they met in that first dream that felt too real to be anything imaginary. He would just have to accept the less appealing drawbacks of aid from such a person – like how her silence could be as startling as any scream.

"I'll take you to him," Yeul said at last, nodding as if confirming something to herself. Hope wondered what it was she saw in him that made her come to this decision. Was it the same thing that made her, Caius, and Noel decide that he was the only one who could solve whatever had snarled the time lines so wretchedly? Some trait invisible to his own eyes, but so blatantly bared to all who looked upon him? _Maybe Lightning saw it, too._

Yeul continued. "He should be in either the Whitewood or the Sunleth rooms, I think."

"Right," Hope said. Then, after a moment, "What?"

Yeul smiled. "I'll show you. It's usually easier to show than to explain when it comes to our lives. Come on." And she turned, her long curtain of hair swaying with her movements.

Hope knew he should follow her. He knew he should meet with Noel, the only one of this deathly trio that he had yet to speak with, if only for completion's sake. And there was a greater chance of avoiding Caius if he got as far away from the first room and the cage as possible. It was an idea which lifted Hope's spirits tremendously. It's not that he was afraid of the man – Hope didn't think he had any room in his heart for anything but a mixture of confusion and mild frustration when it came to the eldest Guardian – but he found the idea of Caius' company sincerely lacking in appeal. Besides, Hope didn't think there was more he could learn from Caius. He'd had a chance to speak for himself already, and Yeul had approached Hope and done the same for herself. Noel was the only one who so far had yet to speak in his own defense which, if any of them wanted Hope to cooperate with what they had in mind, seemed to be a rather important issue.

Not to mention they might just happen to pass Caius on their way to Noel – _just pass_, Hope stressed to himself, to the part of him that wanted to laugh gleefully at the thought of confronting Caius with darker intentions. And the thought of the look on the man's face, seeing Hope freed – and freed by Yeul, no less – would make such a detour worth it.

But Hope knew where his heart lay. He knew where his attention was pinned, like a bird with its wings caught under the stinging reach of nails trapped, agonizingly so. _Light's in trouble – I can't just leave her alone. _Hope looked again at the vision in the Chaos, like a portal behind the door, a tunnel to a reality he could not influence, merely observe. Lightning was there, waiting – waiting for him, for any hope at all. Was he really going to let petty vengeance get in the way of something more important?

Hope held out his hand to press against the darkness, wishing that she could hear him, wishing just once that he could be a guiding voice for _her_. A secret comfort, a reservoir of strength. Why couldn't _that _be his Arte?

"I'm coming for you, Light. I'll be there. I promise." Hope's fingers broke through the hazy shadow, obscuring the unfamiliar face of the man who held her trapped. "He hasn't won. He's only saying that because he's afraid it won't actually happen. And I won't let it. Don't listen to him – you know better than that. I _know _you do."

Hope continued to stare at this stranger, unable to recognize anything about him. He was built a little like Hope – lanky, tall, with wide shoulders but a thin waist that suggested he was less muscle and more of a lithe build. But the face wasn't like anything Hope had seen before – it wasn't even close to _human._ His face must be a mask. There was no other way to explain the bizarre way it was structured: bone-pale beneath a strangely shaped pair of marks, like sharp black shadows running straight across his unearthly green eyes. There were several layers of what looked like tiered golden wings curling around his pointed chin, a rather dramatic exaggeration of a beard, but it was also accenting the sides of his eyes and framed his broad forehead. This part blended into a pointed head-dress, reminding Hope briefly of the Primarch's own, just without a veil. A black arrow-head rested in the center of the mask's forehead, as endlessly dark and ever-shifting as Chaos itself. Hope could see little more of this bizarre masked man, as the vision was merely an intense close-up of his and Lightning's faces, but Hope felt in his gut that the rest of him would be as absurdly elaborate as his face – and just as horrifying. He felt it in his gut.

_Someone this deadset on dramatics isn't going to do anything half-hearted. _And Hope knew this because Hope was just as thorough. A thing done once was done forever, with no room for regrets or denial – at least, not for long. And Hope also refused to do anything with half his heart. Becoming a Guardian, trusting Lightning, swearing to the Patron to protect what he cherished at any cost had all been vows sworn with unwavering devotion, even if he couldn't quite understand their full consequences. However doubtful or afraid he would later become, such emotional impediments could never diminish the faith of the original oath.

But why was he looking at this man as if they were two separate beings? Yeul had almost came out and said it directly just moments ago: they were the same person, separated only by the consequence of choices. _Everything I'd think to do but never actually do are all the things he's done... And vice versa. _A him that wasn't him – a Hope that wasn't Hope at all, but an imposter... If such a man truly were God, at least he had the overblown fashion sense to accompany such an ego.

_Are you honestly taking what Caius said seriously? Seriously enough to joke about it, anyway. _Hope didn't even know where to begin wondering how he could have any connection to divinity. It wasn't a thought he could currently inflict upon his already over-taxed mind.

"Hope?" Yeul called to him, gently stirring him from his thoughts. She placed a hand on his arm and tugged his sleeve with a soft, insistent jerk. "Please, we really ought to hurry. Lightning isn't the only one waiting for you."

With one long lasting look at Lightning, and with an effort that wrenched at his very bones, Hope forced himself to turn back. "I'm right behind you," Hope said, and shut the door on the vision in the Chaos.

In the Void Beyond, locked inside of the stare of the man who wasn't the Primarch, but wasn't quite Hope either, Lightning leaned her head to the side, listening close to a whisper in her ear. Somehow, impossibly, an echo of Hope's words reached her, sounding little different than the own voice of courage she let play inside her head at the most desperate, despairing moments when Serah's voice alone couldn't help. _One of these days I really ought to tell him flat out how much he means, how much he's always meant to me. _But in every time-line they met, in every life they lived, it never seemed to be the right time to say anything close to a confession that could bear Lightning's heart as readily as pulling back the gauze to show a still-seeping wound. _Later. I'll tell him later. There's no point in saying it now._

Or maybe that was just an excuse, a self-fulfilling prophecy. She was too scared to say what she wanted so badly to say, and so she continued on through lives and lines, hoping one of them would grant her the courage she needed.

But that wasn't the only reason. That wasn't the only thing that made Lightning agree to walk along another path, and enter into a new life full of faces so familiar but still so refreshingly new. She returned to all these new Edens again and again because still alive inside her was the hope that the same person with the same heart and same mind could meet a different end. _I won't always fail the ones I love. I won't always hurt Serah or Snow by thinking I know best – and I won't always be too afraid to let Hope in. I won't always be the weak and cowardly parts of myself. Maybe in another life I'll be able to sort it out._

The man who called himself the Primarch, who spoke with Hope's voice but wasn't Hope at all, promised her this was possible. He _promised._But it wasn't up to him to make it true. That happy responsibility rested entirely on her shoulder's - and Hope's, too.

With this in mind, Lightning listened to Hope's vow to find her, to keep her safe, and, perhaps the most important vow of all, to not let the man calling himself God win. And she smiled.

She'd heard that before in hundreds of different ways across hundreds of different lives, but it never failed to fill her heart with hope each time he said it. Because each time he did, no matter the time-line or the lives lived or whatever set of circumstances led up to such a promise, Lightning knew that Hope truly meant it. He would mean it every time.

And Lightning would believe him, no matter if he failed.

And he had failed every time – though perhaps _this _time, in this particular loop, with its particular set of oddities and new yet familiar elements, would make a difference. Perhaps it'd be all the difference in the world. Perhaps now his words and his convictions would amount to success.

It was this reason, and this reason alone, that kept Lightning from terminating her contract and giving in to absolute despair: the faith that Hope would live up to his name and make the impossible happen.

And she had a good feeling about this time.


	16. Chapter 16 - Dents in the Cycle

**Chapter 16** – Dents in the Cycle

Yeul wasted little time in setting off down the hall once Hope shut the door and joined her where she stood. She kept her eyes aimed carefully over her shoulder, as if wanting to keep Hope in sight without actually meaning to stare. He couldn't understand it – where, exactly, could he disappear to? It's not as if he even knew _ how _to leave here; he didn't even know the first thing about how to make it happen.

Unless it was something like the room bending trick. All he had to do was focus on what he wanted and hope like hell it'd come to pass, forcing his body and mind to its absolute limit, pushing right up to the break.

_ Better not try it, just in case that's actually _ true_. _Hope didn't think this deathly trio would be happy to see him go – not that they'd been kind in bringing him over the first time. But if Yeul knew this, she seemed to act as if she did not and so she twisted her delicate neck to the side, letting her unearthly stare catch Hope askance.

_ If she wants to keep a close eye on me so badly, why'd she let me out of the cage? _ Hope wondered, hiding his scowl as long as Yeul was looking at him. _ Though I can't really see her having an easy time of dragging me down the hall if I was still locked up... But still, she's got Caius and Noel to help her. _He chewed on the inside of his cheek, stopping himself from letting out a little bark of a laugh at the thought of what either one of those men would say once they noticed he was free.

Hope followed carefully behind her every step as they walked the length of the long, dark hall, turning his eyes to peer at the doors they passed. They were all the same, like the ones he'd seen in his dream-vision back when he first arrived in this strange place, interchangeable from one to the next. The fast-fading cynical voice in the back of his mind wondered if there wasn't some kind of hidden meaning to it, if there was perhaps a meaning to everything he'd seen so far in this strange interstitial realm where Guardians of Death could roam and reign free.

_ All those memories and thoughts being replaced one after another and another _ ... _ That's me, isn't it? That's all of us – except for Light. _Hope reached out to run his fingers across the surface of the walls and doors he passed, seized with a sudden biting curiosity to try to open one of them as Yeul had. What would he see if he gave in to this impulse? So far the rooms had no rhyme or reason behind their construction: the ones on the left had all been proper rooms with walls and windows, and other such furniture ranging from the comfortable to the confining. It was the rooms on the right that seemed to be something else entirely, containers for the uncanny – like the Chaos he had only recently turned his back on.

Hope remembered another such trip down a long hall, following in another woman's steps, hoping for answers and insight into a future he could not refuse, but could barely understand... _ Of course, _ he realized. _ It's like when Light took me to meet the Patron. _ Yeul had been with him then as well, her apparition peering at Hope from the tinted panes of glass in the Palace, like so many ghosts trapped in dark mirrors. _ How long has she been keeping an eye on me? Maybe she was even trying to warn me. _

Hope moved his eyes to Yeul's back, the delicate bend of her shoulders, the graceful way in which she strode forward in the almost blinding dark, admiring her courage. There was no fear to be felt from her, but that brought with it a kind of subtle, carefully buried arrogance that her companions hadn't been able to hide well. He didn't judge her for it. And, if he had to be honest with himself, Lightning was just as brash and stubborn since they first met. Was it all just a kind of courage, tainted by their experiences as Guardians? Or was it simply a trait that formed as a means of defense when one realized they were impervious to the welcoming rest of death?

These were the questions Hope should have been asking, but the fear of not having an answer, of _ none _of them ever knowing how to solve such confusion, stopped him from letting the thoughts escape to the open air.

Yeul turned her head back to the front and sighed. "I know it wasn't exactly... _ kind, _ the way we brought you here, Hope. But please understand that it's really only desperation that made us act that way. If there had been more time perhaps we could have actually persuaded you, rather than choosing force. _ I _ would have persuaded you, anyway."

"Can't change what's already happened, right?" he said.

Yeul shook her head. "But you can stop it from happening again."

_ Somehow I feel like we're talking about two different things. _ Hope passed a hand over his face, well aware of its various aches and the bruises that were beginning to throb into being around his eyes. He must look as horrible as he felt, but not for the first time in his life, he didn't care. _ Let it show. Let Noel see the damage. Caius had no problem staring at it and not giving a damn. _There was something perversely empowering about showing off a wound, as Hope only knew too well from his years living with his father's temper. No matter how much his mother might have pleaded in the night to keep smiling, to keep trying, to simply pretend that the man she loved was not the man she so clearly feared, Hope hadn't been able to stop himself from putting every bruise and cut on display. It was a terrible lesson to learn as a child – but as Hope said, you couldn't change what's already happened. There'd be no point in forgetting it either.

Hope must have been fourteen when he realized this for the first time, with a jarring, lightning bolt of clarity that stopped him cold. _ Show the damage, don't let it hide, and anyone who looks away isn't worth the truth or the time anyway. _ It struck him when he was peeling off the bandages, hidden alone in a bathroom stall at school. And it had brought the same rushing relief as did that one breath of air after a nightmare – rejuvenating, invigorating. A return to life.

"Just tell Noel to go a bit easier on the punches next time, okay?" he said, because however kindly Yeul might have phrased it, Hope could easily recognize the undercurrent to the words she let him hear. "_We need you, and whatever we need we'll take, however we have to take it." _

"You can tell him yourself," Yeul said, and she folded her hands in front of her, pressing her fingers just below her chest. "He'll need to hear it."

"He's in the Sunless room or something, right?"

"Sunleth," she corrected gently. "Either that or the Whitewood. He's very fond of both places. Caius and I value the simple solitude of the tea rooms, but Noel has always preferred to be outdoors. It must be a lingering trait he can't quite shake – in his life he was a hunter." Yeul slowly began to tilt her head, considering a thought the way one might lend their ear to a distant, dim sound. "I wonder if he misses it. The old life."

"You haven't asked him?" What _else _had they talked about in all their years together? Surely that topic would have come up at least once.

"Noel wouldn't dare tell me if he did," Yeul said. "He's not like Caius. Caius can barely hide a thought once it's alive inside his head, no matter how he talks or makes himself look. But Noel... he never wants to be a burden. I can _tell _he doesn't want to be."

Hope began to chew on the side of his cheek again. He wouldn't feel pity for the man who beat him into submission and dragged him off, oblivious to Lightning's screams. He wouldn't. But he was.

"So what do you know about the situation so far?" Hope asked, using his voice as a way to banish the unwelcome sympathy. "About where Lightning is and what's going on?"

Yeul nodded. "You're familiar with oblivion cores," she said. It wasn't a question. "This predicament we're facing is something similar, but of a different origin. It's still an infestation, and it's still definitely unnatural. However, what's produced from the contamination aren't monsters, but a kind of... Knot. It makes a gap in time that becomes filled with chaos and darkness. Memories and events become scrambled, tangled together in a kind of stasis that skews its future. A past might not be easy to change but it can be warped, along with everything else that happens after it."

Hope thought of the half-rotten Lightning from his dream, of the golden eye of God peering down on them both, laughing Himself fit to burst. Was that merely a memory of another time-line, then? "Why is it happening?" he asked. "I don't mean why as in how, I mean why as in what's the _ reason _ for it? Can you guess?"

"Have you never wanted time to stand still? Never wanted to freeze one moment in place forever because you were happy or at peace – or because you were scared?"

"Not in this life," Hope said. "Any time I was scared I just wanted it to be over fast."

"That's good to hear," Yeul said. "Perhaps it's for the best that you've had a rather... poor life on this line, then."

Hope glared at her, but said nothing.

"We've been observing Purgatorium for quite some time now, trying to recognize and isolate patterns that would allow you to undo several knots with one unravel. We assume that will be less taxing for you – and you've already been through enough on this line."

Hope wasn't sure how to take this sudden show of pity. "And that'll get me to Lightning?" he asked, focusing on what mattered.

"It'll undo the barriers supporting the world He's made for her," Yeul said. "And hopefully that will allow easier access to its core. From there, you can destroy it completely and break the infestation."

They reached their destination at last. Yeul reached out to push the door open, revealing a room that opened immediately into a kind of forest. Trees as thick as columns rose up all around, their boughs the exact width of rooftops but not wide enough to block out the warm glowing sunlight. The distant cry of birds and the faint hiss of wind reminded Hope of the first time he arrived in this place. There had been hints of some idyllic scene similar to this outside of the white room they'd all sat down in to have tea. Was this the same place?

"… And Lightning? What about her?" he asked, refusing to be distracted from the one point of interest.

It wasn't Yeul who answered, though. Noel's voice rang out from a nearby bent bough, its bark as ashen gray as cinders. "She'll be all right as long as you two stick together."

Hope and Yeul watched as Noel swung one leg then the other down from the ough, landing neatly on a patch of long, swaying grass topped with pale yellow flowers. He stepped carefully around their dainty heads, with just the tiniest taint of swagger to his every movement. His bright blue eyes found Hope's and searched his face, lingering long on the dried blood and bruises. "That's how it's always been with you, right?" he asked.

Hope could only stare back at Noel." That's an interesting comment, coming from you," he said, noticing the way Yeul tensed.

Noel bristled, one of his hands becoming a loose fist. "Everything I did had to be done – even if I wasn't always happy to do it," he said, not taking his eyes off of the damage on Hope's face. Hope found it strange that this one bit of thoughtfulness should touch him so much – how do you learn to thank someone for paying proper attention to the damage they did to you? Hope had never learned this. He'd never had a reason to even consider it before.

"Being a Guardian is never _just _about making yourself happy," Noel continued. "It's about taking care of your duties first. And... I'm sorry. For what I did to you. I'm sorry if in another one of your lives, I'll have to do it again. Maybe we'll both choose better next time," he finished, trying out an attempt at a friendly smile.

Hope smiled back, showing the split in his lip that was in danger of bleeding again. "I'm not planning to let it happen again," he said, and felt a strange surge of gratitude that Noel didn't look away when the blood began to leak out of his lips again.

"So you want to end it here, with _this _life?"

Just like with Yeul earlier in the hall, Hope had the impression once again that they were talking about two different things. "What's wrong with that?" he asked.

Noel didn't wait a beat before he shrugged, waving his hand to dismiss the suspicion that was settling over the three of them. "There's nothing wrong with it," he insisted. "It's more unexpected than anything else."

Yeul folded her hands again and took a slow step backwards. "I'm going to find Caius," she said to them both, before moving her eyes onto Hope. "Keep Noel company for me, won't you? I shouldn't be long."

They watched her go, opening the door into the hall and stepping back into its gloomy darkness. When the door closed, Hope watched the seams along the panel slowly fade into a kind of camouflage best fitting the surroundings – except for the fact that it was clearly a still-life painting. Was it for Noel's benefit, this kind of subterfuge? To complete the ideal image of a world separated from the morose sanctuary that was his home?

Noel scratched the side of his head, clearing his throat gently to get Hope's attention. "I should probably explain myself, shouldn't I?" he asked, looking momentarily embarrassed at the words coming out of his mouth. He pulled his mouth into a thin line and continued to scowl, his eyebrows knitting over his bright blue eyes.

Hope mirrored Noel's casual shrug. "If you'd like," he said. Then there was a pause, just as full of displeasure as Noel's frown. "Couldn't hurt, I suppose," he added, remembering what Yeul had said, and trying as best he could to craft an olive branch out of this awkward air.

A cool gust of wind cast a pale shadow of Noel's eyes as his hair fell forward, momentarily blinding him. He brushed his fingers across his face, freeing his gaze once again to scowl curiously at Hope. "Well, I'm not gonna waste my time talking if you can't be bothered to listen," he said. "You're here for a reason. I know it, you know it – hell, even that Patron of yours would be able to see it if he were here. It's as plain as that busted nose on your face."

Hope sighed. "Noel, just say whatever you have to say. I'll be listening. … Though it would also be nice if I could clean up while that's happening," he added, gesturing to the bruises and blood on his face. "Since you were so kind as to bring it up first."

"No problem," Noel chuckled. "There should be a little stream nearby here. I doze off listening to it sometimes. Come on, I'll show you." He waved Hope on and began to set off down across a dirt path that wound its way between the mammoth trees. Hope had no choice but to follow, impressed at the size and depth of the room – was it really just a room, or some kind of pocket dimension, similar to whatever magic arsenal allowed him and Lightning to retrieve and sheath their weapons?

"Is any of this actually real?" he called out to Noel, who was strolling peacefully a few paces ahead, not at all caring that Hope was at his back. _He probably hasn't noticed the knife yet, _Hope realized, startled that even he had forgotten it was still in his possession. That Yeul had trusted him enough to let it stay in his possession was a touching sentiment, a vote of confidence Hope hadn't quite expected considering the way he'd been detained. _So I scare the men, but not the girl?_

"It's a spatial distortion based on a personal recollection," Noel said, turning on the spot and walking backwards, smiling proudly at Hope. This change in behavior from the first impression Hope had of the young man was startling – either that or Noel was simply laying on the friendliness a bit too thick. _"He never wants to be a burden," _Yeul had said, and again Hope's heart clenched with sympathy.

"You've noticed by now that the rooms in this hall aren't normal, right?" Noel added. "We've had a long time to play around with a few of them, trying to make them into familiar places that aren't as lifeless and dull as all those white rooms." He lifted his hands and waved, gesturing to the colorful, peaceful wilderness around them and turned back around to face the front. "This one's my first – what do you think? A hell of a lot nicer than those knock-off hospital rooms, right?"

"It's not bad," Hope admitted, though he was far more interested in the stream that had just appeared in their view. He quickened his pace, overtaking Noel to arrive first at the stream's side. The dirt crunched beneath his feet and knees as he knelt down to steady himself as close as he could to the water's edge, leaning over as far as he could to take in his reflection.

There wasn't any.

Hope's heart went cold.

"Yeah... There's a few kinks we still have to work out," Noel admitted, folding his arms over his chest and watching Hope's reaction with a keen gaze. "Got the scents down right, and the temperature's not so bad on most days – but I still have trouble putting together reflections. Don't take it personally."

"I'm not," Hope said. "Why would I?" He reached out to pass his fingers through the water's surface, surprised at how _cold _it was. Colder than he felt. "It's just going to make clean up a bit trickier, that's all."

"I'll tell you if you miss a spot," Noel said, kicking at the dirt, forcing up a little wedge of grass so that its bare white roots showed. "But... hey, why don't I regale you with a little story while you're hard at work making yourself less gross?"

After tucking the knife into the back pocket of his trousers, Hope cupped his hands under the water and waited until he had a respectable little puddle forming. He leaned forward and splashed his face, shivering at the crisp bite and the way it trickled down his neck and past the collar of his shirt, freezing parts of his back like nails made of ice. "Go for it," he said, because the shock of the water had made him take a brief, sudden leave of his senses. Though he was honestly curious to know more about Noel – Caius and Yeul's information, though interesting, had only been given secondhand. And whatever impression Noel had made the first time Hope had seen him clearly didn't match up to whatever they saw in him. Stubborn and bold and brash, eager to be useful and stick to a credo of honor and pride – Hope wasn't sure such people actually _ existed _ outside of storybooks.

Until he met Lightning.

And now Noel, he supposed.

"The story's obviously important, I'm guessing?" Hope asked, scrubbing hard at his cheeks and glancing over to Noel.

Visibly relaxing but scratching his head once again, clearly embarrassed, Noel glanced away upstream. "I wouldn't bother telling you if it wasn't," he muttered – then paused. "I meant that to sound different. I really didn't want to argue, honestly, I just – "

There was something so endearingly pathetic about this exchange that Hope just couldn't let it pass. "Noel, hey. Look at me," he said, and then reaching out to tap the back of his knuckles against Noel's calf when it was clear Hope hadn't properly snagged his attention. Hope waited until they were looking at each other before he spoke again. "Just say whatever it is you want to say. I'm listening. It's not like I'm going anywhere, you know."

However much fun it was to see Noel squirm, as a kind of sadistic recompense for what Noel had said and done to him earlier, Hope knew it wasn't fully deserved. Noel was trying – Hope could _ see _him trying. And it reminded him far too much of his own self to let the attempt pass without any effort made to encourage him.

Noel examined Hope's face for a moment. "You missed a spot on your left cheek," he said, scratching at his own to indicate where Hope should clean next.

"Thanks."

Hope didn't have to wait long for Noel to start talking again. "I'm not used to talking to more than two people," he explained. "Yeul and Caius have been around for... I can't even remember how long. Ages, probably. I've lost track of the years." Noel crouched down, still an arm's length away from Hope and began to stare dreamily into the waters of the stream. His reflection, Hope noticed, was just the vaguest, flimsiest outline, a blurry ghost on the waters constantly changing and shifting, never settling for one shape. It made him feel cold again.

Noel continued. "You get used to one kind of company and almost take for granted how well they can understand you, until it's time to start talking to someone else. And then when that happens you realize you're pretty much terrible at it." He picked up the clump of dirt he'd been kicking at and hurled it into the water, the pebbles and roots and grass dissolving across the current like mist in the morning heat.

Hope soon realized this was Noel's version of an apology – he could hear it in the tone, could see it in the grim, resolved set of his face. "I understand," he said. "Really. … You know, for most of my life I don't think I had any other friend besides my mother. She's the only person I ever felt comfortable talking to."

"Seriously?"

Hope nodded. "All that changed once I grew up, of course. But that's the usual thing with children, isn't it?" His mother had indeed been Hope's only friend for a long, agonizingly lonely stretch of years, even after she'd enforced the credo of telling lies for the sake of seeming happy. It hadn't been until Hope had found a way out of the house and out from under the yoke of that deception's poison did he realize for the first time that he was, at last, friendless. His studies helped distract him from the sting this fact brought.

"That's... kind of sad," Noel said.

Hope glared at him and considered a childish retort in response to Noel's own. Flecking him with water seemed like a nice start – but no. There'd be no need to drop down to his level yet. _He probably doesn't even know he sounds like that, _Hope thought – which was somehow worse. "Thanks," he muttered.

Noel's apologetic backpedaling was immediately, and awfully sincere. "Not sad as in pathetic! I just meant sad as in... well... _sad_."

Hope pulled down the sleeve of his uniform coat to dab at his face, drying the traces of water that remained. "… Thanks," he said, meaning it this time. "So. What's the story you wanted to tell me?"

There was a long, thoughtful pause. Hope waited, watching as Noel considered the current in the stream with as much intensity and rapt thought as one might to a deciding blow in chess. The strategy was everything. Every choice had a fallout, no matter how carefully it was crafted. "Imagine that one day, after a long and mostly unsatisfying life, you finally realize that you aren't as alone as you once thought. There's people waiting for you, people who need you and care about you like a family, but better. Because it's a family that you _ chose _to have – people who really need you, who truly value you."

Noel reached out to throw another clump of dirt into the stream, creating rings with the pebbles and chunks of grass newly unearthed. "All of you band together for a common purpose, even if the price of being together can be more of a burden than you once thought. But it's something you have to accept together, because that's the _ price _ of being together." His eyes became as glassy as the stream, and Hope had to look away not for his embarrassment's sake, but for Noel's pride. When he spoke again, his voice was thick, coated with the tears he refused to shed. "Sometimes you have to make choices you'd never even consider on your own, choices that you wouldn't have the _ courage _ to do alone. But they're also choices with consequences you don't have to _ suffer _alone."

He turned to Hope at last, clearing his throat. "Do you understand? I mean, you might not, considering your only friend for your whole life was your own mom, but..."

Hope scowled. "And would one of these choices involve punching someone in the face?" he asked.

Noel grinned. "Sometimes. And threatening their girlfriend, too."

"She's not my – "

"I'm not finished yet," Noel said, holding up his hands as if to push back the words Hope was trying to say. "Caius, Yeul and me all have a job to do. You know that, right?" He waited for Hope to nod before continuing. "We protect and guide the passing of souls, because they're always in need of a helping hand. Nothing's more vulnerable than a life newly lost, and they can't make the journey alone. Someone has to be there to support them."

"Is this still part of your story?" Hope asked.

Noel nodded. "It is, yeah. So stop interrupting."

"It's a _conversation_," Hope argued gently, unable to resist. "I'm just participating in it. I don't know how Caius and Yeul let you get away with talking to them like this, but most people I know _share _a dialogue, instead of sitting down to listen to someone else preach to them."

"I don't preach."

"You're right, you don't. Your story's significantly less inspirational than that." Hope eyed Noel askance, wondering how hard that blow had been taken. He was really only trying to joke, though he was still terribly aware of the fact that Noel had _punched _him. "… But you know, there's a story like the one you were telling me. It's how my mother used to put me to sleep on some nights."

"Another mom story again?" Noel mumbled.

"Shut up about my mother," Hope snapped.

"I will if you do."

"Remember what I said about a conversation, Noel?"

Noel opened his mouth to say something – then stopped, realizing Hope's tone and the hint of an embarrassed expression. "I'm kind of putting my foot in my mouth again, aren't I?" he muttered.

"Better than talking out of something else," Hope said, and he laughed, actually laughed, as Noel gave his shoulder a hard shove.

"So what's your story?" Noel asked.

Hope settled down, crossing his legs and warming his hands on the back of his legs, dragging the fingers up and down the taut fabric. He wished he had gloves. "The legend goes that Eden stands poised on a needle-thin pillar, cradled by an all-catching thread. I used to think it was a nice way of saying my mother would always pick me back up again if I fell or got lost. The usual thing you say to a kid to make them feel better at night, you know?" Hope chuckled, catching himself. "Well, I thought that _ later. _As a kid I actually believed in the story... and I believed her."

Noel thought about this. "And what about now?" he asked.

"Now I believe in it again," Hope said, shrugging. "How could I not, after all that I've seen? Besides, I'm pretty sure that story was planted by you three."

Noel laughed. "Well we _ try _not to get too involved in what souls take with them when they move on from one life to the next, but that doesn't mean they aren't susceptible to certain impressions."

"I'm not hearing a no," Hope pointed out.

"Because it's neither a yes or a no answer," Noel said. "I guess we're not always easy to forget. I don't think I can ever forget the first time I woke up and saw Caius frowning over me – or when I met Yeul shortly after that. But I've noticed something over the years. Sometimes there's certain souls who kind of... _feel_ us more than others can. Not like psychics or anything, I just mean there's some souls who, when they keep coming back through after each life is over, tend to feel a bit more relaxed around us. They even hang around before we have to force them on through the next cycle." Noel tilted his head, considering something. "It's weird when I put it that way. I never really thought about it before, but being a Guardian of Death kind of means you're always _haunted _by the dead. I wonder if your mother's like that. Wanna go ask?"

"No," Hope said at once, surprising Noel more than he surprised himself. "No, I - Is she actually _here_?" he asked, unable to resist asking the question.

Noel nodded. "There's another room on the top floor of this place where we actually get some work done. It's where the Gate is."

"What Gate?"

"Etro's Gate," Noel said, blinking. "... So your mother never told you about _that _story?" he asked, guessing at Hope's confusion.

"Guess she must have forgot," Hope said, his voice sounding distant and small to himself.

"I can find her for you if you want," Noel offered. "I know you guys didn't get a chance to say a real goodbye this time."

"No," Hope said again, shaking his head.

"Why not?" Noel pressed, as if what was being discussed was no more taxing to the human heart than picking what restaurant to eat at.

"Noel... Have you ever been both so sure and yet so doubtful something would happen at the same time, that when you got a chance to see how it turned out you didn't know what choice to pick?"

"Probably," Noel said, shrugging.

Hope stared at him.

"... Oh. Right. I see." He scratched the side of his head and turned away, giving Hope a minute alone. "I could pass along a message," he said, eager to help. "She's always been so nice to us in the past, so I doubt she'd mind hearing me out for a little bit. Especially if it was some final word from her only son."

Hope knew he should be defending his mother against whatever bizarre insinuation Noel was making about her – the character of her soul or her propensity to hang around defenders and sentinels of death – but all he could think of was one harrowing, hollow point in Noel's careless speech. _They keep coming back through. _One life wasn't the end. "… A soul lives more than one life?" he asked.

Noel looked at him, frowning. "All souls do, yeah," he said. So casually, so carelessly, it almost made Hope sick. "Except for you – you _ and _Lightning, as a matter of fact. You two are different from all the rest. And you shouldn't be."

Hope only realized Noel had gotten to his feet when the shadow he cast was thrown over him. He started, staring at the hand Noel offered to help him to his feet, not quite ready to take it yet. "Why not?" he asked.

Noel stared. "Why _ not_?" he echoed, incredulous. "Are you kidding me? Because one soul trapped in the same cycle is... It's not..."

"Natural?" Hope finished, noticing Noel's struggle. He pushed his hands against his knees and stood up, waiting for Noel's response. _Yeul warned me about this, _he realized, the memory of the earlier conversation impacting on him at last. _That's what she meant by an infestation that only I could fix – because I'm the problem that _needs _to be fixed._

Noel considered his next words carefully. "Not _ kind_," he said at last.

Hope hadn't been expecting this at all. "What do you care if it's kind or not?" he asked. "You almost broke my nose."

Noel clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth down hard before the answer came to him. "Think about it, Hope. Life's all about growth and experience, not about staying who you always were, resistant to change. Souls are like that too – and of course, so's death. You have to _ move on _. You have to let go. It's not like you can refuse the future, so why even bother?"

"And of course you're talking from experience?" Hope asked, unable to prevent himself from linking what Noel was saying to all those times his mother had pleaded with him to hide and smile. "_We're happy here, Hope. We're perfectly happy. And your father will realize that in time. Until then, don't you think we should help him?"_

"More like hindsight," Noel said. "Hey, I never finished my story, did I?"

Hope shrugged and turned, heading back up the dirt path towards where he thought the door was. "I think I can guess where it was going, anyway."

Noel followed, but soon overtook Hope to stay in the lead. "You sure about that?" he challenged.

Hope kept his eyes front and his shoulders back, breathing slowly. What would Lightning do if she were here? _ Probably punch something, starting with Noel. _ Hope wanted to smile as he imagined this, but it hurt too much to think of her trapped, alone, lost. _ She's not here. I don't even know how if I can _ bring _ her here, and then back over to the world where we belong. _ Failure wasn't something Hope wanted to consider, but he could not resist the temptation of its sting. It was just as possible as success, wasn't it? And if what Yeul, Caius, and Noel were saying – if what Lightning herself had hinted at – Hope had come to this point in his life many, many, _ many _ times before. _ And I always failed. I always let her down. _

_ But not this time. _ Hope clenched his fists, feeling a rush of blood up through his head and down past his heart. It reminded him of what he felt when he kissed Lightning for the first time in this life. _ I still never apologized for that. I had no right to lie to her and kiss her in the same breath. _Hope would make sure the next time they met and spoke, that it would be with honest words alone. He swore that the next time she let him kiss her, it would be with a set of lips that refused to tell a lie, no matter how comforting it might be.

These were thoughts he would have to consider some other time, in any other moment than the present one that was lingering around him, noose-like and oppressive. Hope turned to keep Noel in his gaze as he answered. "You were going to tell me that you three brought me here to do something I might think is awful, but I have to be brave enough to see it through, anyway. And it's something to do with how long I've lived – with how many _ times _I've lived. And maybe that awful thing I have to do extends to Lightning, too."

Noel didn't say anything, and his silence only gave Hope the conviction and the slow burning anger to continue. _ Did he think I wouldn't connect the dots? Did he think I wouldn't _notice? Even Caius had given Hope more credit than that.

Like a knife digging into a sore, sour point, Hope pushed the matter further, turning his hands into fists. "My life or... me just being alive throws your whole cycle system out of balance. Doesn't it? And something about Lightning does that, too." Hope took in a long breath and drank down the courage such fresh air gave him. "Caius seems to think I'm a vessel for God, and Yeul's convinced I just have to make a different choice in the end, once I free Lightning from where she's trapped. And all the hints you've dropped so far just match up to what they've said. You three want me to set things back to how they were to help restore order to the cycle. Though I'm assuming you have no idea what that might involve _ doing, _since neither one of you have come forward to tell me about it yet. Or maybe you're just afraid," Hope added, realizing this as he spoke. "Caius was scared too, you know. So maybe you are as well. Yeul's the only one who can talk to me like she isn't afraid of what I am."

Noel's frown deepened as if he were tasting the most sour fruit that he had no way of forcing out of his mouth.

"It's a good thing that both of you are too scared to be honest about what I have to do, because Yeul keeps going on about a choice, about how it's my _choice _that will matter most in the end. Well, I'm not here to argue with her. I agree with her, actually. But how much of a choice could it really be if it's already decided for me and just passed along down the line like an order? I might be a Guardian, but I've still got a mind of my own to use. I might be a Guardian of Chaos, but that doesn't mean every choice I make has to be something _bad._" Hope closed his eyes and let the warmth of the false sunlight guide his next few steps. "I might be some kind of vessel for God, but that doesn't mean I'm any less of a person without Him."

They reached the same clearing to which Hope and Yeul had first arrived, and still Noel hadn't said a word. "I'm right, aren't I?" Hope asked, resisting the urge to take hold of Noel's shoulders and shake him. "You can answer _ that_, can't you?"

Noel's expression, though still sour and displeased, had just a trace of a smile writ across it when he regarded Hope again. "You know, in another life you and me probably could've been friends," he said.

The chill Hope felt lingering from the stream, as well as his bottomless fear about whatever choice he had to make for Lightning's sake, evaporated quickly, almost miraculously. Try though he might to fight it, the smile appeared on his face unbidden, returning back the one Noel shared. "This one isn't exactly over yet. There's still time."

"Excuse me... Hope?" Yeul had returned unannounced and unnoticed, taking both Noel and Hope by surprise.

Hope turned to consider her, lowering his eyes to her face. "What is it?" he asked.

Noel noticed something about Yeul that wasn't quite obvious to Hope. "Are you okay?" he asked at once, and took a step closer to her.

Yeul only kept her eyes on Hope. "You should get going now," she said. "Go out to the end of the hall and choose the right door. There's someone waiting for you who requires your assistance now."

"Is it Caius?" Hope asked as a joke, though his heart and mind were screaming only one name.

She shook her head at once, fast. "No – but don't worry about him. He won't stop you. I made sure of that."

He nodded, grateful. But her expression was puzzling him. "Is something wrong, Yeul?" Hope asked, looking her over with care.

But whatever was going on inside of Yeul's head remained her secret to keep. "You _ really _ ought to be going now, Hope. I'm sorry I can't explain more right now. I'm sorry I can't _ do _ more for you. But please, remember what I said to you. And for what it's worth... I have faith that you'll be all right this time – _ both _ of you."

Hope let the look that passed between Noel and Yeul fade away without comment, knowing they had their secrets, knowing they deserved a chance to share them – just as much as he knew that if they had really wanted to harm him, they would have done so already. It wouldn't exactly have been hard to do.

"All right. Thank you," he said, smiling at her, wishing there was something else he could say to alleviate her worry. Because she _was _worried. It hadn't been an easy emotion to place before now, but it dawned on Hope that for the first time since making her acquaintance, he was getting the chance to see Yeul actually, properly concerned. What had made her feel this way? Had something on this time-line actually changed, just as she'd wanted it to– but not for the best?

"So I'm really allowed to go?" Hope asked, glancing between Yeul and Noel.

They both nodded. "It's probably about that time again," Noel said, which explained everything and nothing in a simple, blundering sentence.

Yeul's answer was a bit more enlightening. "I've been rushing you since I freed you from the cage – but now it's time you began to push yourself. Remember: leave here, go down the end of the hall, and pick the right door."

"Got it. Thanks again." Hope turned to leave them, only happy to put this curious place and its gloomy, chill air behind him... But there was something hehad to do before he left. He wouldn't rest until he let it happen – and he doubted even Lightning would forgive him for passing up this chance.

_ Sorry, Yeul, _Hope said, sparing her an apologetic glance as he reached out to tap Noel's shoulder, drawing his attention – and then punched him hard enough to knock him down to the grass.

Yeul tried not to smile. "Well that's... _different_," she said, hovering at once to tend to Noel, offering his arm a sympathetic pat.

Noel cursed and fought to get back to his feet, his fingers grazing the spot where Hope had struck. He shifted his jaw carefully back and forth, assessing the damage. "What was that for?" he demanded, glaring up at Hope from the ground.

"For Lightning," Hope said, realizing the truth as he said it. "And for my mother, too. Something tells me if either one of them were here, they'd have done that twice by now."

Noel shook his head and turned to the side, spitting out blood from where his teeth had dug into his tongue. "It's funny that you think you know so much about _Lightning_," he sneered, "Considering you don't even know her real name." He waved away Yeul's offered arm as he stumbled to his feet again.

_He's trying to hurt me, _Hope realized, smiling with just a tinge of bitter amusement at Noel and all his efforts to wound him again. Maybe they would have been friends in another life considering how well one could read the other, and how much sympathy that planted between them. "I don't have to know what she's called to know how important she is to me," Hope said.

He turned his back on Yeul and Noel, but not before he noticed the way Noel rolled his eyes and mimed a gag at what Hope had said. Hope thought he heard Noel mutter something as he passed through the door and reached behind him to snap it closed. _"Lovers," _he thought it sounded like.

And this was a word Hope couldn't deny. His only regret was that Noel had said it first.


	17. Chapter 17 - Predatory Glow

**Chapter 17** – Predatory Glow

Choosing the "right" door proved to be far from difficult to do, so whatever had distressed Yeul enough to paint such open unease on her face was clearly unrelated to this little task. It helped that her instructions had been straight and to the point: go to the end of the hall and choose the right door.

This command puzzled Hope for only a few seconds. Right door... Right door... Well, all the doors _on _the right side of the hallway had been full of strange visions and mysteries so far, contrasted with the ones on the left that had been relatively simple and predictable in their layouts. So all he had to do was reach the hall's end and pick right.

Easy. Almost suspiciously so.

"That wasn't so bad," Hope said to himself once he arrived. "I wonder what had Yeul so worried?" But he had no time to puzzle over her moods now that the eerie tranquility of the young girl's presence had passed. He wasn't here to wax poetic. He had a job to complete, a mission to focus on – and he had to see it through to the end, without anything to distract him from the goal. It was bad enough that his mind was focused on the ever-present dread about where Lightning was, what she was doing, and what she was even _allowed _to do.

Hope's immediate answer was to think, _Whatever she wants. _Because surely even as a prisoner – and a prisoner of a deluded god, for that matter – she would be reckless and brave enough to throw back any of his attempts to control her right back in his weird, masked face. Rebellion ran in the Farron family for a reason. And Hope would just have to believe that Lightning would stick true to this motto. He hoped so – he almost wanted to pray for it to come to pass, but he wasn't sure if that would make it any more likely to happen.

"Light... can you hear me?" Hope whispered, waiting in front of the door Yeul had told him to find, not quite ready to pass through it just yet. He put a hand over his heart, pressing his fingers down on the pocket hidden over his breast. He could feel the comms-link that Maqui had made for him, and that Yeul had upgraded with her strange, curious thread. Perhaps he could use it now.

What was it she'd said? _"It won't work here unless I fix it." _But _how _had she fixed it? Hope didn't know, couldn't even guess apart from it having something to do with the eerie red thread she'd wound so carefully around the device. But for what purpose? What power was inside it? He pushed harder against the comms-link as if waiting for some kind of sign that it was working as he wanted it to, and shut his eyes, focusing on every inward and outward breath.

"Light – wherever you are and whatever's happening, I'll find a way to stop it. I swear.I'll make up for it and I'll stop it from ever happening again. You taught me how to fight... And you've been fighting so long on your own. Let me carry the weight this time. At least let me _try_." Could she hear him? Could she feel these words? If he had an Arte, he'd want it to be used for this exact purpose: shortening the gap between hearts who deserved not despair, but an almost indulgent abundance of comfort and ease.

Hope wished he had the answers, wished that every question that boiled up inside his thoughts could be swept away with one single, satisfying sweep. If he had an Arte, it would be to silence every doubt and alter every ounce of fear without a second thought, doing so effortlessly and instinctively, without fail every time. If he had an Arte, it would be to master what hurt in his heart that took root in his mind and never let such aches escape the scope of his reach. How easily he could picture the source of that contamination: like a reverse invasion, like a tree with its poisonous roots bared to the air, contaminating all. If he had an Arte it would be to always do as Lightning had told him to right from the very start: turn his fear into something else, make it a badge of honor, a mark of pride. It wouldn't matter what he suffered or that he had at all, because sometimes suffering was the price of being brave. It's what you did with the hurt and the fear that mattered.

_Can you hear that at all? Can any of these thoughts reach you? _Hope closed his fingers around the comms-link, mindful of its fragility, of the way it shifted and clinked beneath his touch like the smallest shard of crystalline glass. If he wasn't careful it might tear through the fabric and cut down to his chest. _Can you hear my heart Light _? _Because I'm always listening for yours. _

Hope took a breath and waited, not bothered by the silence –at least, not as bothered as he might be by it. He opened his eyes.

The door in front of him looked no different from any of the other doors in the hall at a first glance, but the closer Hope peered at its surface, the more apparent the changes were. The designed engraved into the wood were different here, no longer long thin diamonds but a strange, bruise-like distortion to the wood itself, warping the diamonds to look like multi-pointed stars. _Like the comms-link _, he thought, impressed.

For the first time since becoming a Guardian and learning that there were lives and memories he should have retained, Hope was struck with the sudden, rattling shock of deja vu. It left his mind blank like a stone freshly turned over in the waters of a brook, all its catching, rough edges smoothed down by the currents, leaving behind a pristine slate.

"Have I been here before?" he asked, knowing only silence would greet him. He reached out a free hand to trace the patterns on the door. "How many _times _have I been here before?" How many other lives had he lived that came to this very point – and was he any braver than they had been? And what about his anger – surely the other versions of himself had all been rightfully furious, if the same conditions led him to this very spot. Separated from Lightning, charged with a task to complete that no one in charge felt like adequately explaining – accused of being the very same contaminating threat that he had to eliminate. Hope knew he should be angrier at what he'd learned during his time in Memoria, that it couldn't just focus on somewhat more insignificant hang ups such as physical violence and the confining nature of cages. But his anger was muted, distorted, focused more on a general distaste for what was happening and less on any personal offense. There wasn't much of courage inside of his heart either, certainly less so now that he put his back on Noel and Yeul who had, in their own ways, tried their very best to be kind.

_They're all I have to call my allies, and they can barely trust me with the truth. _Hope might add Caius to the mix as well, if he weren't still reeling from the riddle their conversation had been. How could a man admit he was afraid and still come out as the victor in such a discussion? Hope couldn't understand it, but Caius had found a way to do it with as much ease and practiced grace as that sickle smirk. Yes, he was afraid – and anything that could earn the fear of a man like him was surely a dreadful thing to consider.

_And it just so happens to be me._

Hope laughed, mirthless, toneless, his voice flat. Yes, he felt far removed from bravery just then, and whatever anger he felt was quickly becoming the kindling to the fire of his conviction to change it all how it should be, to stop it all for good with whatever choices this life offered to him. Surely they had to be different this time around. Because no matter how many times Hope had come to this point before, and no matter how many times he stood in front of this warped, deceptively harmless door, he swore to himself that this time would be the very last.

Lightning was lost, yes... But he would find her again. He'd get her back, hold her close, and listen to every story she had to share about the lives they once lived, letting the memories take root inside until they took on a life of their own. There wasn't an ounce of doubt in his heart that this would happen, that he would be the one to see it through, either. It was a simple process, easier said than done of course – but it _would _be done. She was lost, and he'd find her. That was all there was to it. He'd _make _it that easy.

A man that could be God was playing a long, cruel game with lives that were not his to contort... But Hope had a lifetime's worth of experience with such petty tyrants. _Guess my father was good for one thing in the end. _Either you played into their hand and waited for them to destroy you, or you tossed aside all thoughts of beaten obedience and pushed back. You choose to fight against their strangling hold no matter what pain it brought you, because there was nothing so terrifying as giving up.

Hope wondered what the other versions of himself had endured in the Estheim household in other timelines. Was it a standard, fixed event that he was meant to have a callous, bitter father and a willful but cautious mother? A broken home as the one steady constant in his life – how that made Hope laugh!

Well, it was the only constant apart from Lightning. Apparently they were bound to meet, little sense though that made to him. Maybe it was a way the universe could find a way of giving back, a balance to the tarnish scales that was his life along any line.

"Focus," Hope said, angry with himself. The words emerged with the same cold snap in a similar way to how his mouth moved, open and shut like a trap. "You're stalling right now and you need to stop it. Focus, Hope. Just... _act_."

And without another thought of deja vu or rotting roots or equal, awful exchanges from the universe, Hope reached out and opened the door.

Light was behind it, pale pink and warm like a kiss, like a pair of guarding, guiding, gentle arms meant to cradle and keep you safe. Hope forced his eyes to stay open wide as he reached out to the light – and impossibly, wonderfully, the light _reached back. _It pulled him closer with slow, patient tugs until the light became cords, binding tight vines that wrapped around his wrists and arms.

Hope stumbled forward first with a gasp, then with a muffled scream that was quickly silenced by the light enveloping him now. It was trapping him whole. The pink glow evened out slowly, paling into more of a white-gold hue, and when Hope took a breath for another gasp and scream, he smelled a faintly sweet, floral scent in the air. Lilies, maybe? It was hard to tell.

_Mom loved lilies, _he remembered, a curious thought with little purpose that strayed across the surface of his mind as he struggled feebly against the light's tightening vines. _She'd always bring in armfuls of them from the corner florist, all different colors and kinds... What were their names again _?

Stargazers. The name appeared across the surface of his mind and he ran it through his thoughts, focusing on that one little detail to help keep himself grounded, stable, and sure in this weightless world of glittering shackles. Yes, Stargazers – that was their name. Hope pictured their petals streaked with a blushing, deep pink and their pollen stubs that shriveled if left unplucked for more than a day. How vividly could he remember seeing them in stem vases all around their house – and how cruelly he could remember seeing them shatter, snap and break during arguments and beatings. Vulgar displays of feeble power he wouldn't soon forget.

_Is she here? _Hope thought, remembering how Noel had offered to take him to see his mother for one last goodbye. Had she heard that exchange somehow, somewhere – and had she taken it upon herself to bridge the gap her son was perhaps too scared to close? _Could she really be waiting for me here? _

"... Mom?" Hope asked, wanting to believe it could happen, wanting to _know _that it could. He closed his eyes once more, waiting for the tears to soon follow the needle-sharp burn at the edges of his vision. "Mom, I'm sorry," he said.

And the light responded.

"I'm not your mother, Hope," it said in a voice as charming as it was soft, gentle and sweet. A woman's, and strangely familiar. "And as far as I know you don't have to be sorry to me."

His eyes snapped open. Standing in front of him and holding onto his hands was a short, thin, sweet-faced woman he'd last seen frozen on a crystal bier. _Frozen, _Hope insisted in silence to himself, _frozen, and not dead. _She was alive now and vibrant, her eyes peering with equal parts mischief and delight up into his own.

"Serah?" Hope's hands reflexively closed around hers, grateful that the shackles of light and their eerie predatory glow had faded with her arrival. He was grateful as well that the fear brought on by his capture had been replaced by the warmth she gave, a kind of aura of comfort and compassion that was so different from the chill that seemed to permeate the air around Yeul, Noel, and Caius.

"That's me," she said, giving a little shrug.

"But how are you here?" he asked, stunned. "I'm fairly sure this place doesn't work on any type of usual logic. I mean, the last I heard you were..." he trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence.

"I'm really here, Hope," Serah assured him gently. "Well, a part of me is, anyway. It's a projection, sort of like a hologram with substance. I can be in any place and point in time where a memory of me exists." She paused. "Kind of like the opposite of my sister. Lightning can physically move between the timelines because it's life itself, not memories, that she's chasing after. Meanwhile I've got a sort of spiritual bird's eye view of them all."

"That was part of your contract," Hope said quietly. It wasn't a question.

Serah nodded. "I really hate those things. Don't you? You never sign up for exactly what you want – but maybe the point is we'll find a way to make it work regardless of the limits we have."

Hope could see with the kind of clarity that comes crashing into one's mind like a bat to the side of their head how Snow could be so irrevocably enchanted by Serah, enough to drive him to the point of madness when faced with the awful fact that he'd failed to help her. He could understand even better why Lightning would be nearly crippled with guilt at letting all her love turn into a kind of cage, iron bars unrelenting, lock and lid unyielding – Serah was the sort of person whose heart seemed worn as an accessory pinned to her sleeve for all to see.

And yet... Hope couldn't deny that there was something _off _, something closed and hidden about the way she smiled and looked at him, as if there were a strength to her that could be as relentless as the prison of ice that preserved her body in the Palace. She was undeniably kind yes, that was plain to see – but Hope hadn't forgotten the Farron credo: _Rebellion runs in the family. _Lightning's was all surface fury and passion, as ruthless as it was blatant, but Serah's could pass undetected, furtive and sly and visible only to those clever enough to spot it. And by then it was perhaps too late to do anything but pray for last minute mercy.

In short, exactly the kind of person you would want on your side if you planned to take God down.

Hope understood exactly how Serah could help him in all the ways Yeul had not.

"It's nice to meet you," he said, trying to turn his strange grasp of her hands into some kind of salutatory shake. "Well – nice to meet you _again_," he amended.

Serah laughed. "Actually, we usually _don't _get a chance to meet," she said. "But I'm glad you've heard of me this time. It's a nice change of pace too, because normally I have to do a while introduction speech to get you on my side."

Hope felt his spirits sag just a little. How much of this timeline was truly changing, then? "I saw you in the Palace this time," he said, "and Light told me about you before that."

Her eyes brightened. "Ooh, the Palace? Sounds pretty fancy," she echoed. "It's not every day I get to actually _see _how those echoes of me are doing down in Eden. Can I see?" And before Hope could ask how she intended to do that, Serah held up her hands, placing her fingers on his temples. "This is gonna feel a little weird," she said, "but I'll make it quick. Okay?"

Hope's throat went dry, the words scratching their way up to his mouth and across his tongue. "Mind reading?" he asked, hazarding a guess. He reached up to wrap his fingers around both of Serah's wrists, eager for some kind of leverage – and a way to push her back in case her definition of _weird _was his idea of _pain _.

"Memory searching," she corrected. "... So, can I come in?"

"If you have to," he said.

Serah closed her eyes and Hope followed suit. She waited another moment more and then _pushed _, ever so gently, but with a firm, guiding hand. It felt like the energy that had pulled Hope into the doorway with lurking, hidden traces of that same predatory glow.

"Let me see me," she whispered. "Just me and nothing more than that, I promise. I won't pry into anything you don't want to show."

A chill like a skeletal, cold hand seized Hope's throat and _squeezed _, its icy choke traveling up to lock his head into place. Hope cringed and tried to pull his hands back. He wasn't afraid, no, he wasn't that – but he was getting closer to it. And then –

She was seeing what he saw, seeing it all. Her frozen body resting in a place of honor on the altar. Snow tending to her, keeping her company with a tireless love that was as devoted as it was destructive – for himself. Her sister, Lightning, refused to believe the lie that kept Snow's life from breaking apart entirely, refusing to cater to that desperate delusion – and lamenting her refusal. Just one more notch to add to the whipping post of her guilt, a veritable torrent of it, to the point where even Hope had to flinch, even _Serah _pulled back with the smallest, most vulnerable little gasp.

"I'm _dead_?" she asked, her voice a faint squeak. "No, worse than dead... I'm _trapped. _What the hell happened to me?_"_

Hope squeezed her wrists, wanting to give her some comfort. "Snow doesn't think you are," he said at once, eager to take the fear from her voice. "He can still feel a part of you inside, I'm sure of it. And I'm sure if you asked Light about it she would agree... eventually."

Serah shook her head. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better, Hope. You were there. You saw it, too."

"But I could hear you," he insisted, pushing the point not to win the argument but because he wanted so badly to be understood. "I wasn't too sure about it earlier but now I know it had to be you. Your voice – I've heard it before."

"Of course you have, Hope," she said, her tone dipping slowly into disappointment. "This isn't the first time I've run into you."

"No, I mean... On _this _timeline. I heard your voice in my head, as crazy as that makes me sound."

"It doesn't make you sound crazy," she said. "Maybe it was a kind of echo reaching out to you. I wonder why I'd do that..." Serah hesitated. "What did I say?" she asked.

"Rebellion runs in your family," Hope said, "and that I should get used to it."

"That does kind of sound like me."

They both opened their eyes and took a step back from each other. Serah ran her finger over her bottom lip, turning to pace slowly away from him. Hope watched as the world around them began to even out to a kind of stable shape, the pale gold and pink lights shrinking to become thick, marble columns the color of crème. Wreathed from their top to their base was a coil of vines, thick and burgeoning with flowers whose perfume slowly filled the air, tickling Hope's nose and making him cough and flinch. It was these little sights and sounds that pulled Serah's attention to him again.

"Sorry," she said. "Kinda lost myself for a second there."

"Don't worry about it." The world around them began to stabilize, and Hope saw more of the land around them take shape. A thick garden grew to almost obscene profusion all around them, with a three-tiered fountain decorated with what looked to be little cats with bat wings standing in the center. Water rose up out of the cats' wands, raised in a kind of hearty skyward salute. In the distance, Hope could hear the quiet hush of the sea meeting the shore. There was a hint of salt in the air, clashing with the spice of the flowers and the perfume of freshly cut grass.

Serah watched him gaze around, clearly entranced despite himself. She smiled. "Do you like it here?"

"It's beautiful," he said. "But you know... I'm not really sure _where _I am. Or why you're here, too."

"Then it's about time I introduced myself properly," Serah said. She reached up to squeeze the charm dangling off the edge of her necklace – the same one Hope had seen her wear in the Palace, bearing the same design on the Patron's belt. The pale golden light returned, passing over her in a series of thirteen rings, each point of light transforming whatever part of her it touched, similar to the way Lightning and Hope's clothes had dissolved in the hospital room during their first fight. A short hooded green dress appeared when the light receded, its long sleeves flared at the wrists, decorated with a trim of white that matched the lining of the skirt's hem. Red triangles were the only other color throughout Serah's new garb, reminding Hope of hourglasses filled with blood-red sand.

Serah kicked up her heels, the last bit of light still lingering like garters on her legs. Soon boots appeared instead, low-heeled and thin, rising up past her knees, leaving a little room between the end of the skirt and the top of the laces. When she held out her hand to tear at the air, slicing open a little pocket dimension for her own personal storage and use, the penny dropped for Hope at last.

"That's right. You're a Guardian too, aren't you? What's your Arte?"

"Settle down, Hope," Serah said, pulling a long, silver mace out of the pocket she'd opened up. She could wield it one-handed with ease, barely staggering under its weight at all. The top of the mace had a series of thin protruding edges that rose to a needle point. Decorated with carvings all along its handle, down to its base, was a graceful swirl of ribbons like the threads binding the small replica of the world on her necklace. Pale golden gems were set into the wepaon, reminding Hope once again of hourglasses.

_Is she a Guardian of Time _? He wondered. It would explain the repeating motif, and her ability to exist beyond its influence, yet ever present inside it.

"Don't you know that's kind of a personal question for a Guardian?" she followed up.

Hope waited until he was sure the mace was not going to be swiftly introduced to the side of his head before he answered, not entirely sure why she'd chosen to transform when an explanation would have sufficed just fine. "I didn't know that," he said.

"You don't remember?" she asked, curious.

"Not exactly," he said. "Not easily. Everything's still kind of a tangle inside my head."

"You'll sort it out," she said. "You always do. In the meantime, I have a little favor to ask."

"I do too," Hope said, glad that they were changing topic at last. "It's about Lightning."

"Hmm, let me guess," Serah said, tapping the side of the mace lightly against the side of her boots. Could she not _feel _that? "You want my help in saving her, right? You'll do anything to get her back again, even if it means you have to kill this man calling himself God?"

"Exactly." It didn't escape Hope's notice that Serah wasn't convinced the man holding her sister hostage was actually a god.

Serah grinned, clearly pleased. "Oh, Hope. You'll never let me down, will you?"

"I don't... think I will."

Serah put the head of the mace down on the ground. She was short enough to be able to use it as a sort of cane, and so she leaned her weight onto it, tilting her head to the side as she thought. Her eyes glittered as they examined Hope up and down. "Lightning always used to tease me for calling Snow my hero, but I wonder how much she meant it. Maybe she always wanted to find one for herself – I think about that a lot now, in here. Back in my life it didn't occur to me as much."

"She's brave enough on her own," Hope said. "At least, I always thought so."

Serah nodded. "She is, yeah. But you can't always be brave alone. Sometimes it helps to know there's someone you can trust to have your back. It's exhausting to be the strong one all the time. And we all need that one person we trust enough to show our weaknesses, if only for a little while."

Hope considered her expression as keenly as he did her words. "If my life were any different this time around, I would've tried to help him," he said.

"Snow?"

He nodded.

Serah's smile was as beautiful as it was sad. "What makes you say that? I thought we were talking about Lightning."

"_I _was," Hope said. "But you were thinking about him."

She paused, reflecting. "… How could you tell?"

"It was your smile," Hope shrugged. "Back in the Palace you'd always smile at the sound of his voice. Even though you were half frozen in crystal, it was like a part of you could hear him through whatever curse was keeping you apart." He waited, wondering if this was upsetting her. But she continued to smile, and that gave Hope courage.

"I can't hear him clearly anymore," Serah admitted at once, as if she couldn't help it. Her voice was soft, hushed. The same tone Snow would take when addressing her in the Palace, the way you beseech the dead. "But I can always feel him close by. And that's not so bad, right?"

Hope nodded, avoiding her eyes. She didn't seem to mind this little lie.

After a moment, Serah sniffed and shook her head, casting off the gloomy pall that settled over her face, marring it like a shroud. "It all has to stop," she said. "All these different lives and timelines, and those contracts... We aren't meant to _be _like this, Hope. You know that, don't you? We deserve a chance for a normal, peaceful life without anything tearing it apart for some selfish, cruel wish."

"Is that what he's after?" Hope asked. "God or whoever he is?" _We can't be the same person, can we? _Hope felt his throat tighten again, and the air was hard to take in.

"He calls himself Bhunivelze," Serah said. "And as for his ambitions... That's something I can only guess at."

"Still?"

"Always," Serah said, picking the mace up again. "You'll get a chance to ask him yourself, Hope. Don't worry. And when you do... Promise me you'll do something?"

"Is this about the favor you mentioned?" Hope asked.

Serah nodded. "It's a part of it, yes. When you find him again, when you meet him face to face, promise me one thing. Promise me you won't _listen _."

"What do you mean?"

"If there's one thing I learned after all this time, it's that there's a huge difference between hearing someone talk and actually _listening _to them. Don't listen to Bhunivelze. Okay?"

"What could he possibly say to me that could scare me off?" Hope wondered aloud, not really expecting an answer to that question.

Serah's stare froze his heart for a brief, brutal second. "Answers," she said, "Every answer to all the questions you've ever asked about yourself and what hurts the most."

"How nice of him."

For the smallest, most terrifying of seconds, Hope was tempted not to make the promise. It couldn't hurt to listen to the man calling himself a god, could it? Not if Hope chose to turn what he learned back on the man, reversing whatever possible power or influence he hoped to exert back to the one creating it? It wasn't exactly a bad idea either – until Hope realized that he'd probably thought about it before. Dozens of times, hundreds even – perhaps thousands of timelines had been wasted on that first, seemingly logical thought.

Yeul had told him that it all came down to choice, and making a promise to Serah wouldn't exactly be taking a choice away, would it? He could choose to ignore the vow in the end, could choose to disappoint her – but letting Serah down felt just as grim a sin as letting down Lightning.

"Hope?" Serah said, studying him.

"I promise," Hope said, holding out his hand so they could shake on it. It was one of the hardest things he ever had to do, and that included staring the wrinkled visage of a masquerading Death in the face and agreeing to Its terms. "I promise you, Serah. I won't listen to him."

Serah's relief was visible on her face, and palpable in the air. The tension evaporated as easily as if a window had been thrown open wide to let in a satisfying gust of cold, fortifying air. But it only made Hope shiver.

"Just remember those words when the time comes," she said, squeezing his hand hard. Then she waved her mace carelessly at Hope's chest, forcing him back a step. "Yeul gave you something important, didn't she?" she asked.

"You mean that thread from her veil? How did you –?"

Serah sighed just a little. "I'm a Guardian of Memory, Hope. It's kind of my job to retain this information. I preserve memories before they can fade away, but... I never really found a use for it until I got here." Her smile could break even the coldest, iron-clad heart. "I used to think that if there was anything that scared me, or anything that I didn't know how to change or stop, I'd just... Forget about it for a little while. Put it off until I knew how to stare it down and fix it." She laughed, the kind of laugh that sounds like the gasp before tears. "Trouble is, the more you put something off, the more you trick yourself into forgetting it. And there's no one alive who can change something by forgetting about it – not a Guardian, and not even a god."

_What would God want to forget? _"And what about if you just can't remember it?" Hope asked, because the first question felt too close to a show of sympathy.

"Well, that's different. And that's why you're in here with me," she said. "You should count yourself lucky, you know. There's only a few people who can actually benefit from what I can do – you've met most of them already. But it's always _only _them – no matter how many times they appear, no matter what time-line they're on."

Something about this statement reminded Hope of what Noel had earlier said, about a family you choose to have, rather than the family you're born into. But it was Serah's last sentence that made him pause, considering the darker nature to that tie. "Noel said something about how cruel it is for one soul to be stuck in the same life," Hope said. "Is that like what you're describing?"

"Exactly like it," Serah said, nodding. "Good to see he's trying to be a little more open this time around. I bet Yeul wore him down. Hopefully it makes a difference. And speaking of that – Hope, have you ever heard of the story of the red thread of fate?"

This was turning into one of the most pleasant, if not absolutely bizarre, conversations Hope had ever had in his life. But it was so easy to talk to Serah, though they were strangers in this life. It was as if she could draw the knotted thorn of tension out of anyone's heart, no matter how it shrunk or twisted away from her compassionate glow. He only hoped that she had sufficient support in return, to give back exactly what she gave to them – and then he remembered. _She's been stuck here for ages with only memories to keep her company. And even those can't be enough. _"No, I haven't. Is it part of the threads that hold up the world?"

Serah shook her head. "Not quite. It's a thread that unites souls across all the different lives they live. It's not always a romantic thing, though. They can be soulmates in family, friendship, rivalries... There are some people you're always meant to know, no matter how many different times you might be born. Your lives may be far apart but as long as that thread knots your souls together, there's nothing that can ever separate you. You'll always find your way back home to each other." She paused, letting this sink in. Her free hand reached up to run the edges of her fingers around the medallion she wore around her neck, tracing its sharp, jarring edges. "That's the power of Yeul's Arte. That's the power alive inside the thread she gave you: soul unification."

"Why would she need such a thing?" _Could she have been so lonely in life that her contract gave her what the world did not: ties and bonds to a family beyond blood?_

"An Arte isn't always about what a Guardian _needs,_" Serah said. "Sometimes it can be a trait they're good at – or a talent they _want_ to be good at, however much they might lack it. Sometimes it can even be a kind of punishment."

There was something in her tone that let Hope know whose Arte she considered a curse. "What could you possibly have done to earn a life like this?" he asked, resisting the urge to offer her some kind of physical comfort. A hug, a pat on the arm, a shoulder squeeze. For all the sadness she could exude in the same breath as displaying an enviable, iron-forged strength, Hope looked upon Serah as if she were still operating behind that little prison of crystal and glass. He didn't want to intrude on the solitude, didn't even know if he'd be allowed to – which I when Serah reached out to grab his hand.

"Can I squeeze just one more promise out of you?" she asked, all charm and sweetness again. "I know it might seem like I'm asking a lot, but I promise this one's pretty important."

"Go ahead. I don't mind. I just hope I won't let you down."

She gave their joined hands a friendly little wave, as if they could shake off that doubt together. "You won't. I have faith that you won't."

Hope wondered how to thank her for this tenderness, so different from what he'd been recently shown – and yet so familiar at the same time. Lightning had done the best she could in their time together, had offered him her time and shoulder and protection, all the benefits entailed within their partnership, however brief a time that had been, however challenged and preyed upon that was. And Hope had been grateful for it, felt a gratitude beyond his ability to express in mere words. He hadn't known why she'd been so determined to hold him close and keep him safe until recent hours enlightened him to the depth and repetition of her regard for him, but his admiration of it had been no less sincere even in his ignorance. The same could be said here and now, for the kindness that Serah was showing to him. Was it their strength that made the Farron sisters so indomitable and compassionate, so tender-hearted and iron-willed? Or was it what they had suffered, transformed into an emotional reprieve that would divert them from more pain?

Serah looked at their hands locked together, regarding the difference in size and shape. Could she see the scars on his hands, remnants of crueler, family-bound days? Was she surprised that they were there, or did her Arte let her retain the memories of every Guardians' time-line, even the ones she hadn't experienced personally? Hope wanted to ask, so boundless and broad was his curiosity, his eagerness to know and in knowing understand, challenge, and hopefully change – but she was talking again, and his words fell hushed, raptly silent.

"Promise me that you'll always stop to think, no matter how scared or lost you are," she implored, peering up at him underneath the delicate curl of her lashes. "The minute you give yourself over to panic is the minute you lose your ability to _stop _what's panicking you. Don't let it happen. Don't let it win. Cut off the fear before it can begin." She noticed the look on his face, the dawning recognition and the open-mouthed, mute astonishment, and she laughed. "Sound familiar? It's pretty close to a Lightningism, isn't it? But, hey... One more thing."

Serah lifted their hands, linking her fingers through his, squeezing the pads of her fingers down hard against the back of his hand. He could feel their warmth combine and clash, clouds of heat and cold that cause the thunder to howl. For a second he could have sworn that a glow was emerging from his own hand, so similar to the light that he tore open and let cover him when he'd transformed in the past.

And Serah said: "Promise me that you'll always realize you can make a choice, no matter what."

To which Hope could only ask, pitiful and quiet: "But how do I know what's the right choice to make?"

"You don't _know_, Hope. You _remember_."

He dropped her hand, suddenly afraid of the light she'd drawn out, so sure it was similar to her earlier predatory glow. "But that's not my Arte. That's yours. I don't have a clue what mine could be."

She gave his arm a comfort, sisterly pat. "You scared?"

"Terrified."

"Don't be. Turn all that fear and doubt into something else, remember? My sister always found a way to make her fear into strength, but I'm here to remind you that it can be something else too. It takes strength to be gentle and kind, Hope. Just like it takes courage to know when that won't work."

He could have pulled at his hair if he thought it would do any good. Her advice was all kindly intended, and he was sure it would have meant something to him if he weren't feeling distinctly rushed and lost and shoved along, from one second to the next, barely able to grasp what he had to do to successfully take every following step. Why could they expect so much from him? Why did they expect anything at all? Because he was important in another earlier life – because he was a Guardian, too?

"How do I know the difference?" he demanded, teetering dangerously close to despair. "Wait – no, forget that. I don't _know_, do I? I have to _remember_."

"Now you're gettin' the hang of it," Serah said.

"Just... one more question. How is all this going to get me to Lightning?" Hope didn't have to wait long for an answer, but the little lapse of silence between the end of his words and Serah's response was deafening. He wondered if she were judging him. "You know where she is, don't you? You know what's happening?"

"I do, yes. Depending on how I can look at it, it's always happening for me – it just depends on which memory I pick up from the time-lines."

Hope let this sink in. It was easier to understand how the sisters could find different ways to be kind when, to them, they were both suffering and imprisoned without end.

"That's what I'm here for, Hope. You didn't think I was going to let you go off and save the day without any back up, did you?"

"Actually, quite the opposite. I was hoping you'd come with me."

Her response, wordless as it was, surprised Hope. Serah smiled as she raised the mace again – and took a swing at Hope's head.

One of the golden hourglass gems shattered around his head, the shards raining down like glitter that passed across his eyes in a blinding, shimmering fog. The pale golden and warm pink light returned, blurring out the garden and the elegant fountain, drawing the air out of Hope's lungs as well – and then forcing it back down as the shards of memory settled over his skin.

"Serah?" he gasped. It didn't hurt, not as he expected it to, but he felt rather like a warm hand had moved from the bottom of his stomach slowly up to bottom of his chin and back down again, the heat seeping into every pore and spreading through every vein until his whole body felt alive and thrumming with its own predatory glow. "Serah!"

_I'm right here, Hope, _Serah's voice said, filling the chasm of confusion with her soothing words, even if they echoed out as if from a great distance. _Right where I've always been. Just try to relax. And _remember.

When had his eyes closed? Hope forced them open again only to blink at once, stunned. He was staring at a vision again, a vision of a life only half-remembered from when Caius and Noel had dragged him through the Chaos.

But he wasn't alone. Lightning was there, smiling at him.


	18. Chapter 18 - Mind and Memory

**Chapter 18** – Mind and Memory

Hope didn't think twice about what he wanted to do. He didn't even pause to consider it – really, what was there to consider? She was there, she was _here_, right in front of him at last. Though it felt as if there were two of him in the room just then – the actual, physical presence and a sort of consciousness that hovered just above the first one's skin – Hope felt the two blend and mesh into one as he stepped forward. He wrapped his arms around Lightning's back and pulling her in for a tight, breathless hug.

Lightning tolerated this for a moment, before sliding her arms around him as well. "What's this for?" she asked, squirming in his grasp. Her voice was muffled, her words falling into his chest.

Hope relaxed his arms just a little, but not enough to let go of her. He wasn't sure he could exactly do that yet. After all this time of seeing her but not really _seeing _her – after all that time of wanting to know her but not really _understanding. _He wouldn't let this new moment or this chance go to waste... Though of course he could accomplish this _without _squeezing the breath out of her.

It comforted Hope to know that Lightning had thrown her arms around his neck just as quickly as he had latched onto her. Clearly she was just as keen to keep him as close as he wanted to be.

"I've missed you," he said, not knowing how else to express what he felt. But his mouth seemed to move strangely around the words, as if he were being forced to say it... Hope felt himself split off into two again, the body and the mind split clean in two as if by the blade of a knife.

_I was going to tell her so much, _he thought,_and now that I have my chance I can hardly say anything. _Hope couldn't even be surprised; he just wished he'd stop being so predictably disappointing.

Lightning cleared her throat, a tiny, polite cough that was accompanied by the smallest of shifts that put some distance between them. She stared up at him, confused. "Hope, I was only gone for like, two minutes...?"

And that's when Hope realized. It hit him as squarely as Serah's mallet had, cracking across the side of his brain and filling it with one phrase.

_This is a memory, _he thought, feeling as if the world had dropped out from under him. No wonder it had felt as if there were two of him in the room – there _was_. The "Hope" that belonged here, and "Hope" that had been inserted into the scene like a ghost, hovering above his own skin.

Hope held on tighter to Lightning despite it all, not wanting to be right. _This is a memory, it's not actually _happening_._

_Close... It's a memory of something that _did _happen, _Serah said. _I'm replaying it for you – so consider yourself a kind of outside spectator to one of your own selves._

… _Even though this is me looking into one of my own lives? How does that even work? It doesn't make _sense!

_Hey, who's the Guardian of Memory here – me or you? _Serah scolded, her voice like a sharp prod coming from the back of Hope's head. _Stick to what you're good at._

_And what would that be? _He asked, curious to know the distance between what he saw himself as and what Serah thought him to be. It was the one distraction he could think of that would remove him, however briefly, from the broken illusion.

Her answer came at once. _Being impressively stubborn and persistent – and yet not quite smart enough to live up to your name. Not yet._

"Hope?" Lightning's voice was as sharp as the hands she used to tug on the front of his uniform coat, drawing him back to the moment. It was hard for him to think, hard for his brain to grasp both the fact that there was a part of him _living _these events while a part of him was being instructed on how to remember them. It felt an awful lot like trying to pour an entire ocean's worth of water into the thinnest, smallest funnel and being told not to spill a single drop.

Lightning continued to talk throughout this silent confusion, unaware of Hope's distress – although by the way she looked him over it was clear she could take a guess that there was _something _going wrong within. Hope couldn't quite place it, but he had a feeling (born from that one instant where the body and the mind had clashed) that she'd spent a long time observing him on this time-line. She'd gotten used to his moods and motions, to all the words he never said, well enough to sense them.

_How long has she been with me? _Hope thought, not sure if he wanted Serah to jump in to answer. _How many time-lines has she been through at this point? _Hope thought he heard Serah start to answer... But she cut herself off, the words falling into silence.

Lightning said, "We need to focus right now. We have a job to do. Remember?" She reached up to put her hands on Hope's shoulders, squeezing them tight enough to make him buckle under her strength. It was a gentler version of a slap to the face, intended to rouse Hope to his senses. "We don't have time to get sentimental and... distracted by all that implies. There's people waiting for us."

"Right," Hope said, his mouth moving independent of one part of his mind. It was a curious thing, hearing himself respond with more vigor and courage than he could feel inside. But it didn't feel like a lie, either. It was just another version of himself talking, far removed from the Hope that had been poured into the back of his mind. "Of course I remember, Light." A beat passed. Then: "Who?"

_I'm joking with her? I'm actually telling a joke to her when she looks _that _mad?_

_You're a very brave man when you let yourself act that way, Hope, _Serah said.

Lightning chewed on the inside of her cheek and looked Hope up and down, clearly deciding whether or not she should hit him. "Now _really_ isn't the time for jokes," she warned him. "Remember the debriefing Sazh gave us earlier today? That wasn't just for a laugh. There's one more core to take care of... And you made me swear to take you along this time. Or was that a joke, too?"

"No, no it wasn't a joke at all," Hope heard himself say. "I don't want you to fight alone anymore. I want to be able to help this time."

"So pull yourself together. I'm... you know. Counting on you," Lightning muttered. She punctuated this statement with the smallest of glares and a light shove on one of his shoulders, though before she turned and left him to that thought, Hope could see that she was smiling.

Whatever relationship they had on this time-line was far different than what they'd hurriedly crafted in the life Hope had just recently set aside. Here, in this time, they'd had time to grow relaxed together – relaxed enough even to tease – but he still felt a distance between them, as if there was a kind of gap that swelled and warped and stretched depending upon whose company they kept.

_Well I wasn't going to _mention_it, _Serah chuckled, _But... Well. You'll see._

Lightning stepped forward and threw back pair of large, double doors. They were tall, wide, and blatantly ornate, with polished handles that gleamed in the wan bits of sunlight that leaked in from the windows of the room. Once the doors were open, they revealed to Hope a familiar sight. Darkly tinted windows brought in pale streaks of light that shone down on the plush carpet, which stretched through the length of long, thin hallway. Overhead were high, arching ceilings that trapped in echoes and released them back down in filtered, fading whispers, like parts of ghosts lurking all around.

Hope knew exactly where he was. The Palace. The Primarch's Palace in Eden.

He took one experimental glance down at himself and saw a more tailored approximation of the formal wear he'd seen on Snow. Even still he found the obvious truth hard to accept. He was the Primarch. On this time-line, in this life that Serah was helping him remember, he was the leader of Eden. In this life, he _actually mattered._

_Be kind to yourself, Hope. You always mattered._

Vanille, Snow, and Serah were waiting in the hallway, as were two other people Hope didn't immediately recognize. _Sazh and Fang, _Serah's voice supplied. _I wonder where they are on your current time-line?_ She paused. _Hope? Stop staring at me._

_Sorry, _he thought as the memory version of himself followed Lightning into the hall. He averted his eyes from the Serah that was there, alive and well, dressed in the same clothes Hope had only recently seen her transform into. She was tapping her lavishly decorated scepter against her shoulder in time with the tapping of her foot. Impatient, or just pretending?

_I just didn't realize how short you were, _Hope finished, knowing it would make her laugh.

And it did, but only for a second. _Really? That's what you're going to think about now? _He heard her sigh. _I need you to focus, Hope._

_Yeah, your sister just said that, _he said. _But how can I do that if I can't even remember what this _is_? Or when?_ There was but the slightest lilt of panic to his voice, and Hope was certainly Serah could hear it – surely even the one standing in front of him could _sense _it. This version of Serah paused in her foot-and-weapon tapping long enough for her expression to change from amused to thoughtful, soon darkening into suspicion.

_By _listening_to me, _Serah's voice huffed. _Though it's going to be a little strange having me in your head and talking to you out loud. I can't do it without drawing my own suspicion – and I don't remember being more than a little confused after this part, so I'm going to do my best to be quiet. Think you can handle it alone?_

_My whole life's taken a sharp nose dive from "a little strange" more than a week ago, Serah. I think I can manage. _Hope could feel himself chewing on his bottom lip, his eyes darting down to the floor. _Just don't go too far, okay?_

_I won't leave you _completely_, _Serah clarified. _We'd lose the connection if I did. But I'm not gonna keep up a running commentary, okay? Let the memory play out the way it should._

_A memory I _still _don't remember._

_Hope, just _relax. _Be receptive. You'd be surprised what an open mind can do for someone in your position._

Hope decided not to question this. Nor could he do so realistically, since immediate events required his undivided attention now that they were all gathered in the hall. Hope lifted his eyes and took a close, careful look around at the people clustered in front of him. Their faces, though different in gender, age, and skin tone, all wore the same look of hardened, sincere resolve he'd come to associate with soldiers poised on the brink of one last battle – a battle dire enough to bring an end to a long, toiling war. They were all gazing at him with some sense of expectation, eyes alert and expressions curious. It was clear he was walking into the very last debriefing before a mission. The tension in the air was palpable, cold on the back of his tongue like a shard of metal hanging there, ready to cut its way down into his throat. He took a breath and waited, wondering what to do next.

"Thanks for waiting, everyone. And... well... You all should know what you have to do by now," Lightning said, receiving mixed responses full of nods, murmurs, and even fists raised in a salute of sorts. The last was done by Fang and Vanille, the latter of which looked far more cheerful than Hope had ever seen her be.

_No_, Hope thought in response to Lightning's statement. But he nodded a beat behind all the rest.

Lightning glanced sidelong at Hope. "So remind me again where you're all supposed to be headed," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

Hope noticed that she was wearing an outfit different from the others, all of whom had a mixture between what looked like casual clothing (complete with a tattered trench coat in Snow's case) and personal adjustments made to the usual Palace uniforms (Vanille and Fang, who wore female and male garbs respectively). Instead, Lightning's clothes were a deep red and black, the shirt long-sleeved and high-necked, with a leather bodice that forked down to become a kind of expanded pair of back-and-front coattails. The slim black pants she wore in lieu of a skirt did match some of the others', as did the granite grey _X_ stitched to the front of her chest. Seeing that it was a mark all of the others' shared, regardless of what clothes they were wearing, Hope realized only a beat later that this was clearly a symbol of some kind, like an emblem or a badge – and it was on his chest as well.

Hope touched the marking, tracing the edges of the stitching in obvious awe. The _X_ was nothing more than a pair of short, pale blades, like knives crossed. He thought about the knife that Caius had been twirling idly on the table, the same knife that he had kept hidden in his back pocket while enduring all of Noel's attempts to enlighten him. It looked exactly the same as this.

_That's what we like to call a constant variable, _Serah said, unable to resist chiming in. _Something that appears across many different time-lines, but never in the same _exact _way each time._

_We? We who?_

_The royal we – so, me. Just me. It took me a while to come up with the name for it, though._

"You don't gotta worry about us, soldier girl," the man named Sazh said, giving Lightning a little wave as if to knock aside the chill emanating from her gaze. "Me, Fang, and the kid'll be keeping an eye on Siren Park just like you asked. We know this thing's roots run deep."

"And once we get the say so, we're gonna swing back 'round to meet the lovebirds at the Plaza," Fang said, giving Snow and Serah a wink and a grin. Hope noticed she had a pleasant, throaty voice, and an accent just like Vanille's own. There were silver streaks in her shoulder length, dark hair, though he couldn't be sure if that was due to stress or age – she seemed young and vibrant otherwise, and with a rather charming beauty mark below her right eye.

"Speak for yourself," Snow fired back, raising one hand to point a finger and draw a quick line in the air back and forth between Vanille and Fang.

Lightning sighed, the only one among the group who wasn't amused. "You're not supposed to _tell _them," she said to Fang, tense and terse and only a little weary, as if she were trying to herd cats. But Hope could tell she was trying to fight a smile of her own. "I mean, what's the point of testing you if someone else is going to blurt out the answers? What are you actually learning?"

"What if the test is how willing we are to work together? Just to make sure things go smoothly for a change?" Hope heard himself ask the questions, not really sure why he would say such a thing. It sounded dreadfully stupid to the version of him lurking inside this one's head – surely not what a man in charge of an entire city might say. It was far too _naive. _Too simple. Cute. Innocent. Where was the gravitas, the resolve, the hard-line focus?

But if any of the others thought his statement was out of line or beyond the expectation of his character, they certainly didn't act like it. Hope even got a few of them laughing.

Lightning gave Hope a harsh glare. "Don't give them any ideas. You're the one with the _official_ authority here," she said. Hope understood the suggestion in her sentence: _But don't think that means I won't challenge it if I have to._

She waved a hand to Fang, Vanille, and Sazh. "And you three are only supposed to head up to the Plaza once you get word from us. Got it?"

Sazh and Vanille nodded without a problem, but Fang said, "What's the matter? You don't think two ladies and a geezer can get it done? Where's your show of faith, girlie?"

Sazh scowled at the back of Fang's head. Hope considered the man. Dark hair, dark skin, and with warm, brown eyes whose edges were lined with only a few hints of wrinkles. Clearly he was the eldest of the group, but "geezer" was pushing it just a bit too far.

_It's just her way of getting him back for calling Vanille a kid_, Serah interrupted again. Hope could hear the faint note of excitement in her voice. It became immediately clear that while he was simply _enduring _the effects of this memory, Serah was flat out enjoying it. He couldn't blame her. Not at all. Not after learning how long she'd been alone, with nothing but memories to keep her company.

The voice of Serah in Hope's head spoke just as the one in front of him did, creating a kind of eerie, surrounding echo. "Snow and I will make passes between the Plaza and the Sanctum until we get word from you at the Edenhall," she said, nodding to Lightning and Hope, who stood shoulder to shoulder. "Once that happens, we all fall in to attack whatever's left." Serah's eyes moved from her sister to Hope, her expression turning thoughtful again. "And you _will _contact us, won't you? No matter what happens?"

Lightning nodded once. It was a tense, sudden twitch, but she moved her eyes over to Snow at once, deflecting the attention this obvious, nervous tic might bring. "Got something you want to add, hero?" she asked.

Snow didn't hesitate to grin, even if Lightning's glare was still fixed in place. It was plain to see that in this time-line, he and Lightning got along much better than how Hope had recently seen them – even if it was also clear that Lightning was having a bit of fun at Snow's expense. Hope was astonished at the change in this Snow versus the one he'd seen. This Snow looked healthier for a start, with more flesh on his bones and life to his face. His pale blond hair was still longer than it had any right to be, but Hope could plainly see that this man was far happier than the one on the other time-line. _It's almost like they're different people completely, _Hope thought.

Serah was silent, the way a blade hangs above your head – ever ready to fall, but trembling dreadfully in anticipation for the moment to come.

"Yeah, I do," Snow said. "You'll be pretty happy to know that Lebreau and the others are almost done setting up the barricades and road blocks you asked for. So we won't have to worry about any civilians coming across what they shouldn't." His voice was as warm and gentle as the man himself, and yet his words carried a weight to them that was far removed from both.

A chill seemed to move across the group. Hope understood what went unsaid at the end of Snow's sentence: _again. It won't happen again._

Lightning's eyes lingered on Snow for a few moments after he'd spoken, a clear bridge of understanding arching between them in the silence that followed. "That's definitely one less thing to worry about," she said. "Thanks." She turned to look at Hope, waiting. "What about you? Got anything you want to add?"

Hope kept his eyes on Lightning, wanting some kind of clue as to how to proceed, wanting any hint at all to help pull him from the confusion that bloomed inside his mind... Until he opened his mouth and heard himself say, "And make sure that your comm-links are all switched on and set to channel thirteen. Maqui swears up and down that one will work this time."

Hope's eyes lingered on Vanille, who blinked, pausing to consider what he'd said. Her light red hair shifted against her shoulders as she tilted her head. "Isn't yours still broken, Hope?" she asked.

Hope nodded, his body moving without any internal consent. _What's happening to me? _Was he finally remembering? Had his body reached a critical mass of confusion that the memory itself had simply kicked in, leaving behind his unease? "Yes, but Lightning's is still fully functional. Which is why I'll be accompanying her. Anything you have to say to me will have to be patched through to her first."

"Typical," Serah chuckled, grinning at the way Lightning's arms dropped fast along with her mouth, which was now open in a look of astonished horror. "C'mon, sis. Don't look at me like that. You really weren't fooling anyone."

"I'm not – "

"Are you actually blushing?" Snow added, sharing a grin with Serah before he turned his gaze back to Lightning.

Even Sazh was trying not to chuckle.

"Snow, I swear if you open your mouth _one more time..._" Lightning began, shaking her head with another sigh. Hope noticed she her hands hadn't curled into fists – so she wasn't angry.

"Ease up on the banter, Snow. And the jokes for that matter," Hope finished. He hadn't quite adopted an authoritative tone, so both men knew he wasn't being serious. This only turned Lightning's glare into a sharper, icier point that screamed _betrayal._

Snow reached forward to give Hope's arm a playful push. "You _do _realize that you're usually the first one to laugh at 'em, right?" he asked.

"_At _you, Snow," Hope clarified, shoving back. "I'm usually the first to laugh _at _you. There's a difference."

Lightning pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.

"Maybe you were wrong about the lovebirds," Vanille said to Fang in a very obvious whisper.

"_Ahem_." Sazh cleared his throat, forcing a cough. His eyebrows darted up as he shuffled his feet, kicking at the floor hard enough to make an echo. "Primarch, uh, sir? If you wouldn't mind? Really would like to be going."

Somehow managing to avoid blushing as brightly as Lightning was, Hope nodded in response to Sazh. On the inside, however, the part of his mind not fully linked with the memory yet was reeling fast. _I can't be in charge here – can I? I can barely hold myself together. Christ, no wonder we're standing here cracking jokes before going out to attack something._

"Understood, Sazh. Thank you." Hope took a breath – and it was if a wall had come down, making his expression rigid and his voice formal, all laughter abandoned. "I know we aren't exactly new to this kind of situation, but all the same... I want each one of you to be careful out there tonight_. _Stay alert, keep together, and don't forget: It got away from us once before, but we're not gonna let that happen again."

They all nodded, quick to turn somber.

For a long while, no one move or spoke. It was as if they were measuring each other up, assessing strength and determination that couldn't be conveyed in simple words – or else they were saying goodbye.

Hope didn't want to think about that, neither the one in the memory nor the one who was observing it.

"Get going everyone," Lightning grumbled, her face still red. "Meet you in the Edenhall."

Hope watched as the group broke off and walked in a kind of steady, solid march down the hall, shoulder to shoulder, turning to give their fellows a pat on the back or a playful, encouraging nudge. Hope's eyes lingered on Serah and Snow. Without looking at each other, they both reached out to hold the other's hand in a tight clasp.

As soon as the rest of the group was out of sight, Lightning whirled on Hope. Her pale eyes grew wide with fright. "_They know_!" she hissed.

Hope studied her. He was not without sympathy, but he also couldn't help but feel a small bit of amusement as well. Surely their admiration for each other wasn't _that _big of a deal? "Of course they know, Light," he said. "They live here _and _they work with us. They're bound to pick up on the atmosphere after a while."

He paused, and Hope saw the next few wave of thoughts emerge like a projected image playing across the walls of his brain. It started with furtive glances shared between himself and his newly assigned personal guard, exchanges that went as far back as when he'd been named Eden's next leader. Hope knew, because the memory was telling him so, that this was a rite of succession that happened only due to his predecessor having passed away... And he had a fleeting, terrible suspicion that this had been his father.

The images quickly changed to nicer, far more pleasant things, bringing to mind a series of hushed but chaste exchanges Hope and Lightning shared in halls, alcoves, and in shadowed, curtained corners. _"__No one can know," _Lightning had said to him more than once, usually in between a kiss or after she had grabbed hold of his lapel and began to tear at the buttons. _"__No one can ever know." _And no one had caught them per se – but no one had been exactly blind to what was happening between Hope and Lightning, either.

Hope couldn't help but smile as he replayed these thoughts, lingering over particular parts that pleased him the most. He turned and followed Lightning in her slow walk down the hall, matching her long strides and confident strut as easily as two halves of a whole snap into place, working together, connected, as one. "I'm also fairly sure that even _Dajh_ knows about it," he teased.

Lightning snorted. "Hey, lay off the kid. Dajh's probably smarter than half of our team put together." She shook her head so that strands of her rose-blonde hair fell into her face, obscuring the expression she wore.

Hope blinked. "Light? He's six."

"And?"

Hope considered putting a comforting hand on her shoulder – or wrapping his whole arm around her. He could take that kind of liberty, couldn't he? Especially now that everyone who mattered finally knew? But Hope's hands stayed at his side and to himself – and the chance passed. "And it's just that neither one of us have been subtle," he added, masking his disappointment with himself. He moved his gaze to the side and watched Lightning take this in, her lips pressed into a tight, thin line. "But that's really not what matters right now. We need to focus," he added, replaying her words back to her. "Remember?"

Lightning nodded. Hope watched her take a short breath, her shoulders pushing back and down. "Focus. Right. I remember." She closed her eyes for only a moment as they reached the end of the hall. The others had dispersed, running off to their patrol points with all the speed that confidence and courage could provide. It was just him and Lightning left now.

"I won't let it get away this time, Hope," she said, her eyes still closed and her voice low, cracking in the middle of that sentence. "Not after what it did. I'd sooner die than let it get to me again."

Hope knew better than to doubt Lightning at her word at any point in time – and especially not when she sounded as she did just then. She was beyond serious, beyond somber, beyond grave: she was _sure. _Her voice had the kind of gravity that no one of any age, certainly not her own, should ever have – it was the sort of voice that spoke of endless sorrows and weariness.

In the memory, Hope hadn't been able to understand why she could sound as if she were speaking across whole eons and ages beyond the actual years that she looked. But in his mind, the part of Hope that was observing and remembering as this vision unfolded, he finally understood why this tone of hers could leave him so confused.

_This wasn't her first time-line, _he realized. _Probably not even the second or third – or tenth, for that matter. Not even close to it._

But the Hope in the memory didn't have that sad, sorry knowledge available to him. So all he could say was, "That's a bit bleak, don't you think?" as he reached out to cup Lightning's face in between both of his hands. He looked down into her eyes, waiting for her to open them and peer up at his own – and when she did, Hope made sure he was smiling. "It won't happen again, Light. I promise. And I know you're nervous. I'm nervous, too. But you're not alone this time. I'm with you – and so is everyone else."

"Say that again." Lightning's voice wavered on the final word as if her words themselves were about to crack. Hope watched as she took another breath and searched his eyes with hers. "Tell me again, Hope. Please?"

"You're not alone this time," he said, not questioning her request, nor her tears for that matter. _Of course not, _he thought, disconnecting again from this memory version of himself. _He doesn't know what I know about her – he has no idea at all. _"I'm with you, Light. We're all with you."

When he kissed her, it was a slow and lingering caress, giving her ample time to move if she wanted to avoid the touch of his lips. But Lightning turned her face up instead, closing her eyes and meeting Hope's lips with a soft, tender kiss.

_Serah... How early in her time-line is this?_

_One of the first dozen loops. _Serah delivered the answer as swiftly as she had struck Hope upside the head._Long before she turned into the Lightning you know her to be._

_So this is when she still had hope?_

_No, _Serah said. _She always has hope. Just like she always has you. It's just... Sometimes she can lose sight of the most simple, basic facts. It happens to all of us at one point or another. Especially when we're afraid._

Lightning took a step back. Then another. They looked at each other for a while, eyes shifting over the mouths that fought to keep themselves from grinning, expressions that twitched and grew still in the pale light of the moon seeping in from the tinted windows. There were no shadows to be seen, not here, not on either one of their faces – just a warm, steady glow that Hope had no problem identifying as love.

Then, Lightning gave Hope a salute, topping it off with a crooked grin and a quick wink. "Ready to go hunt down an oblivion core, _sir_?" she asked.

"I will if you stop calling me that, _Captain_," Hope shot back, but it wasn't long before he was smiling too. He'd never seen Lightning look as happy as she did in that moment. Even with such a grim situation pressing down on their backs like a flat, iron hand ready to grind their bones into dust, dust that the wind would scatter, Hope couldn't resist the comforts Lightning's presence provided. Nor could she resist his, either.

They left the Palace through its front doors. Dusk was descending on Eden, taking with it the sunlight and its surrounding warmth. Bruise dark shadows and the cool, evening air descended fast around them, made worse by how they both broke into steady jogs as they ran down the long, wide steps from the Palace to its front gates.

Hope glanced up once they arrived at the gates, squinting into the near dark. The street lamps and lights from nearby buildings were bright enough to illuminate the city for blocks all around, and so he could clearly see the sloping, bone-white crest of Edenhall rising up in front of them. The Palace might be where Eden's ruler resided, but it was the Edenhall that was the true heart of the city: a sort of museum, monument, and mausoleum all at once. The Hope alive inside the memory thought, just as the one inside his mind remembered, that he would be buried there some day. All of Eden's rulers were entombed inside the Hall, as if their bones could still serve the city long after the flesh had moldered and gone to waste.

Why was a core _there _of all places? Especially when in the past they'd always chosen places flourishing and brimming with life?

"And you're sure this core can be found be at the Edenhall?" he asked, his face flushed with the pace they were keeping. The streets around them were abandoned, though this part of Eden usually didn't see much life apart from patrols and visiting, lower tier politicians. Lebreau and the rest of NORA had evidently succeeded in keeping the street leading from the Palace to the Edenhall clear: not a single person was in sight, not even the guards that usually patrolled this portion of the district.

Hope continued. "You encountered it pretty far out of the city limits when it first appeared, as I remember. What makes you so sure it's moved?"

Lightning spared Hope a quick glance, one eyebrow raised. "Is that doubt I'm hearing, Mr. Estheim?" she asked.

"No, just... Just wondering," he said, huffing slightly, trying not to lose his breath. "So tell me. Please?"

"Maqui swore up and down that the core was detected in the, ah... The crypts right below the Narthex," Lightning said, her voice trailing off long enough for her words to settle in.

_That's where the other Primarchs are buried. That's where my father – _

"But he _did _also say he didn't want to make any promises," Lightning continued, chuckling once.

Hope tried to join her. It helped take his mind off what could be waiting for them. He hadn't gone to visit his father's grave since the funeral, and not for a lack of time, either. "Guess he didn't want to risk pissing you off," he suggested.

Lightning's laughter turned into a kind of snort. "Smart boy," she mused, slowing her jog to a walk as they approached abandoned expanse of the Edenhall's front steps. Without pausing to think or take a breath, they both began to climb.

"… You know, I didn't think you'd agree with me when I pitched this idea to you," Lightning said, peeking once at him and then away again. "I thought for sure you'd tell me not to take another risk."

Hope blinked, surprised. "Well it's... It's like you said when you approached me with the idea," he began, "It's not a matter of trust or even a lack of it. It's a question of efficiency. And it certainly is more sensible to go for the hardest hit first – you have more experience than the rest of us when it comes to fighting these things." He hoped he didn't sound like he was trying so hard to be convincing. Hope really had taken Lightning's suggestion as the soundest, most reasonable plan – and definitely a nice alternative, considering what had happened the last time she'd dared to go out alone. "But I still think converging on it all at once would be an equally sound idea," he added.

Lightning shook her head, having heard this argument before – heard it and dismissed it, in fact. "That'd be too messy. And far too risky. Since we're spread ut like this, it'll only increase this thing's list of potential targets. That way it'll have to keep guessing which one of us will strike first." She moved her hands as she spoke, separating them further apart and then opening her arms out into a little shrug. "It's the easiest way to put the thing in a panic. Where does it go first? And what if it chooses the wrong target? Once you put thoughts like that into its head, the less chance it has to consider attacking. It'll be far too distracted."

They had arrived at the Edenhall's entrance. Hope reached out to press his hand against the dark, glass door. It bent inward at his touch, the would-be glass dissolving, showing itself to be nothing more than a field that could disintegrate at the proper touch. It had taken the Palace tech department weeks to program the Edenhall's system to match the prints of Hope's hand, an unintentionally frustrating process that made his and the other Guardians' core hunting all the more time consuming than it ought to have been.

"I'm not even sure this thing can feel fear," he said. "They never have before. It's not... It hasn't picked up traits of being human, right?" he asked, dreading once again the possibility of what he would find in crypt. Hope could feel the memory version of himself growing colder as a dreadful thought crept up slowly, like nails scratching the length of his spine. Thoughts of what had happened before when this core had been approached entered his mind... And then were swiftly forced back out again.

_Something happened to her, _Hope thought, knowing that Serah could hear. _Something happened to her and I'm not letting myself remember it._

_Relax, Hope. Don't worry. It's... Well I'm sure you can _guess?

Lightning followed Hope into the Edenhall. Candles were still lit in sconces all around the right and left sides, as well as votives that flickered, sputtered, and came close to dying out, taking small pinpricks of light with them. Portraits of Primarchs old and young lined the walls of the Hall, some were even painted across the massive, stained glass windows that arched up to the cavernous ceilings. "You heard Nabaat's analysis, didn't you? She and the rest of them in the tech department didn't put me through all those tests just for the hell of it, you know," she said, her voice echoing into the darkness around them. "This core inspires as much fear as it feels within itself. I know that for a fact, Hope. I know it because it _told me_."

Hope shivered, chilled to the marrow. "It called itself Phobos, didn't it?" he asked, his voice hushed. "When it made... contact... with you?"

Lightning nodded.

"I remember reading about that name when I was a kid," he said.

_I remember that too! _Hope thought, astonished that there could be one connection at last, apart from his fondness for Lightning. _It was part of the book my mother would read to me, and –_

_Hope? Be quiet._

"... Phobos, the silent secret shadow, the noiseless companion following in the blotted footsteps of battles," Hope continued, blissfully unaware that there was a part of his mind acting outside of his control. "It's supposed to be either a child or a sibling to a god of war – the story was never really clear on that. I find it strange that a core would choose that of all things for its own name. Has it ever done that before?"

Hope turned to look at Lightning, stopping in front of a door at the rear of the Edenhall. It would lead them into the crypts below, though neither one truly wanted to descend. Not yet. Hope had his reasons – reasons that made the heart in his chest clench, made his stomach seize and flip. "You've been doing this longer than I have, Light. Do you remember that sort of contact happening before?" he asked, his throat growing dry, making the words emerge in a rasp.

Lightning's face was a haunted, hollow mask – but only for an instant "… Once," she said, stepping around Hope and opening the door to reveal a thin, dark stairwell leading to the crypts. Hope had come prepared for the shadows they were to find, and the flashlight was in his hand at once, turned on in a trice.

"It was a long time ago," Lightning said, "and the person didn't survive. Of course, back then the core seemed more interested in _consuming, _so it probably took the whole _contact _idea literally."

_What's she talking about, Serah?_

_You don't know? … You mean she never told you about how our father died?_

_No, _Hope thought. _It's not – you mean it's the same every time?_

_Just another constant variable, _Serah said. _Our father always dies in the exact same year on every time-line... Not always from the same thing, but it's never a natural death._

_Why?_

_Because suffering is a human thing, _Serah said, her voice as hard as iron. _And God laughs to see us suffer._

Hope followed Lightning down the stairs. He had no other choice, and she had moved forward, fearless, but not without a few moments of hesitation. She kept glancing back over her shoulder to look Hope over, sympathy making her expression soft, and her eyes warm. Hope took strength from this. _Don't think about being down here, _he said. _Don't think about coming down here now, before you were meant to – not like _that _hasn't happened before._

"So instead of going after the mind, it went after...?" Hope stopped, realizing what she had meant when she said _contact._ "Ah. I see."

Lightning said nothing.

"Thank you," he said, reaching out with the hand not holding the flashlight to stroke the back of hers.

Lightning stopped on the next landing, moving her hand out of his touch to place it on the railing. "For what?" she asked, confused.

Hope put a hand on top of hers and squeezed, taking as much strength as he was given from her touch and warmth. "For taking me with you this time. For not going off on your own again." He took a breath. "And for trusting me – trusting all of us enough to tell us what happened."

… _We're not going to kiss again, are we?_

_No, thank goodness._

Lightning searched Hope's eyes, and what she saw there made her smile again. She pushed a few loose strands of hair behind her ears and started to walk down the steps with Hope at her side. "You know, Serah said something like that to me this morning," she said. "She told me that I should start relying on others as much as I talk them into relying on me."

Hope laugh. "And she's right – and she's only saying that because she cares. Not because she's trying to embarrass you."

"I know she does. Care, I mean."

"And I do too," he added.

They had arrived on the floor below the Narthex. The doors to the crypt stood before them, arched and pointed stone slabs bearing a base relief of a praying, somber woman. Hope tried not to stare too long at the sight, not wanting to remember the last time he'd gazed upon it, not wanting to think that perhaps the next time he would be passing through here, he would be long dead.

_I was supposed to be here already, _Hope thought, unable to keep the fearful truth from his head_. They'd already made room for me on a slab next to my father. Too bad I let them down by surviving._

Lightning gave Hope a quick elbow to the side of his ribs, as if she could sense the bleak turn of his thoughts and wanted to shove him clean out of them. "Eyes front, Hope. Don't get distracted now."

Hope elbowed her in return. "Eyes front, you watch the rear. Something like that?"

"Sure – at least, until we find the little bastard. Then we swap." She took a step forward – and then stopped. Hope hadn't moved.

Lightning turned on her heel and stared back at him, her face half thrown into shadow. "Remember? You promised you'd let _me _take care of it this time."

Hope skimmed the edge of his bottom lip with his teeth. "I know I did, Light. Don't worry. I'll keep my word."

_As long as it keeps you safe, _the version of Hope in the memory thought, watching as Lightning turned again to walk into the darkness of the crypt. He didn't wait long to follow her, knowing that Phobos was waiting for any sign of their approach. He hoped the other Guardians were distracting the other parts of Phobos they encountered long enough for Lightning to kill the main part – he hoped they wouldn't have to call any of them in for back up.

* * *

In the Void Beyond, cradled in the gilded cage called Purgatorium, Lightning clung to the memories as they grew up and out and alive within her. She knew that Serah's Arte was at work here – it had happened before, had happened countless times with varying degrees of success. She couldn't get her hopes up from that alone. But she would always cherish the process, knowing that her sister was guiding Hope back through the memories that mattered the most, knowing and trusting that Serah would always let Hope experience the three, crucial memories that would make the end encounter all the more easier to endure.

Three memories. Three lessons to learn. Three lives to lose – and in losing, gain.

Behind her, beside her, surrounding her, the god who called himself Bhunivelze laughed to see this vision unfold. Lightning ignored him, as she always did. This too had happened before. He always thought it would happen again. Of course he did. Of course.

But he didn't see what Lightning saw – no, he never saw what she could see. Because if suffering was a human thing, unknown and beyond God's own ken, then so too was suffering's opposite: happiness. God could never know what it was like to be happy. That would always be His loss, and the final, crucial key to His downfall.

Now, if only Hope could _remember _that.

* * *

**Notes: **Next chapter's gonna be the last, with an epilogue soon after. Get hyped, I guess. Maybe.


	19. Chapter 19 - Last Resort

_I'll conquer time, defeat it  
I'll change the past, my future  
If any gods are listening  
Answer my prayers._

- Naoshi Mizuta feat. Joelle, "Village and Void"

* * *

**Chapter 19 **- Last Resort

Phobos' screams picked up in frequency and pitch when the doors to the Edenhall crypt snapped shut. Did it know death was coming, or was it screaming to beckon the end closer? Hope didn't know, had no way of knowing – he still understood so little about the peculiar forms of life, knowing only enough that their existence was to be denied. But was that enough?

Hope waited for an answer to arrive, knowing he had limited time. He watched as Lightning's shadow moved further into the darkness that stretched out beyond his flashlight and hers. Did she ever have these thoughts? Did she ever hesitated? Hope didn't think so – she certainly didn't seem like she did. Lightning was the perfect picture of ferocity, as ever, the slope of her shoulders staying as steady and flat as she kept her head high and her steps certain. She didn't even look back. Not once.

That ought to have terrified him. Indeed, it ought to have made him scared, desperate, eager for her to linger long and wait for him to catch up. But Hope felt nothing in those moments but the cold weight of calm descending from the back of his thoughts, moving into and through his heart. She didn't hesitate. She didn't even question what she did. And he would learn from that.

They'd do this together. They'd handle this and any problems hereafter, no matter the type, together. And that demanded trust.

And what else was trust, but hoping that in the darkness there would be one small scrap of light to make sense of the end?

"I'm right behind you, Light," Hope said, taking a step forward into the shadows. She may look fearless, but Hope had learned one thing during his brief tenure as Primarch, and that was when to give your voice in a tireless chorus of support, especially to those who fought in your name. "I'm right here, every step of the way."

"I can hardly hear you, Hope," she said, throwing a quick smile over her shoulder as she passed yet another cobweb-bound sarcophagus. "And you don't have to whisper, it's not like these guys'll mind the noise." She didn't even flinch, not even when death was so near. But Hope could hear the break in her voice, that little tremor that moved through the final words in the sentence.

It wasn't fear, he realized a beat too late. It was fear _for_.

_She knows I don't want to be down here. She knows I shouldn't be here yet at all._

Hope opened his mouth – and then something screamed. A high-pitched, ear-splitting howl exploded in the air, echoing through the tight, cramped corridor, until it sounded like dozens of voices were piled up and screaming from their battered, broken coffins. It was the sort of scream one might make if they had one small bit of life to dig out of the hollowed out husks that were their crumbling bones: death had come. Death was here. And they could do nothing but face the end, screaming.

With one hand pressed against his ear Hope peered around, the beam of his flashlight cutting across the cobwebs, carpet of dust, and the stone-carved alcoves that dipped down into individual tombs. "_Where is it?_" he screamed.

"_In the back!"_ Lightning said, pointing. Her hand trembled, defying Hope's earlier belief that there was no way she could be afraid.

Only the latest Primarchs were buried further back. The ones freshly dead, the ones whose memories and loss still ached in the ephemeral twine that was the public's consciousness. _He's back there, waiting for me. My father – _but Hope slammed that thought shut before it could crawl out of its crate.

Lightning slapped her hands over her ears and bent forward as if to duck and dodge the sound building up around them. Her knees buckled, the force of the scream moving across her as certainly as if it had shoved her back. She cried out as she collapsed, one hand falling out to catch her from landing face down.

He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't just stand there and not help.

Hope gnashed his teeth into a grim edge of molars and forced himself to move forward, one excruciating step at a time, until he was at her side again. Wrapping an arm across her shoulder, Hope leaned down and asked, "Did it do this the last time?" He had to scream to be heard over that deafening shriek. It sounded like a terrified animal backed into a corner of glass and knives.

"No – it was just crying!" Lightning yelled back, flinching with pain. She leaned ever so slightly into Hope's touch, drawing strength from the contact, the way a runner might lean back against the little silver heel guard before taking off at a sprint. "But that was _nothing _like this! This is different – it's something else!"

Hope racked his brain for an explanation, forcing himself to think of anything, anything at all besides those terrible screams. Only one idea came lurching forward, as if it'd been lying in wait all along – and it filled his heart with a burst of pride. "It's the others," he said, leaning in close to let the words flow evenly into Lightning's ear. "Serah and Vanille, and everyone else. It's gotta be them. They found its roots and they're on the attack. That's why it's screaming: it's _scared._"

Hope expected her to smile – foolishly, stupidly, he expected Lightning to have some kind of warm reaction to what she heard. He expected anything but what she did next.

Teeth bared and breath coming fast, Lightning slowly lowered her hands from her ears. Hope watched her roll her shoulders, set them straight, and slowly pull herself back up again. If she were a puppet on a string, then she was the master in command of every tug but every motion was made in agony. _Is that what it takes to be brave?_ Hope didn't know the answer. Looking at her forcing herself to stand, her knees trembling, her hands covered in dirt and her teeth still gnashing, Hope wasn't sure he'd be able to find one.

All he knew was that he would be the same. She wouldn't be alone in this, or in anything. No more.

Hope imitated her, standing up as tall as he could against the force and the blast and the pain of the scream echoing around them in a mad spiral – and he reached down for Lightning's hand. He couldn't help it. He couldn't deny himself both the comfort and satisfaction of having her close enough to touch, especially now, where it might be his last chance to take advantage of the indulgence.

To his surprise, Lightning was looking for his hand as well.

They stood there in silence, surrounded by an oppressive, miserable sound, hands locked and eyes pointed forward. _It's not bravery, _Hope thought, squeezing her hand. _It's just a simple, basic fact. This is something you have to do. This is something you get done. You endure it. That's not brave at all – that's life._

"We have to keep going," Lightning said. "We can't let it win. Not this time, Hope. Not again." Her eyes were wide and her face was as wild as the tone that laced her words, giving them a barbed, panicked edge. She was afraid now, fully afraid. But she wasn't going to stop, no matter how sharp the fear became.

Hope squeezed her hand again, every finger wound through his. He ran his thumb against the side of hers, giving back as much strength as he was given. "We can do this," he said. "You and me, together. We can handle this. Don't worry."

With their heads pounding fit to burst, Hope and Lightning forced their way deeper into the crypt. The fear he could no longer deny made Hope's chest ache as if an ax had cleaved apart his ribs and left their bleached, broken arcs exposed along with every tender, trembling organ. He didn't want to think about his father buried down here, no doubt impressively rotten by this point. Hope didn't want to think about what could have drawn Phobos to this place – was nothing sacred to it? Did it have no concept of respect at all?

Or was it merely searching for solitude, a place to be alone and die alone? There was still so much Hope didn't understand about the cores, no matter how he pressed Lightning or others in the Conseil for answers. It pained him to think this would be the legacy of his reign: fighting forces that preyed upon Eden unknown, unseen, and could never be explained the populace.

"_But why? Why keep it a secret?" _he'd asked her once the truth was out. It would be a long, awful while before Hope forgot that night – the night he became a Guardian.

"_What could we tell them?" _Lightning had said – scoffed, even. As if she'd heard this argument before. As if she'd had to shoot it down before as well. _"__That monsters are real? That they're after all of us and can spring up at any moment so always be on your guard?"_

"_Well, yes. What's wrong with that?"_

Hope could still remember the look on her face when she'd heard him say that. The moon was full and bright that night, shining its pale light on her face, making it look bleached and hollow. She was angry, that much he could see plainly, but there were tears shining in her eyes as well. Tears Hope still couldn't understand. _"__Because we don't _know _enough to calm them down after that. We don't know why the cores show up, we don't know why they do what they do – we can't even predict _when _they'll arrive. Haven't you been listening to me?"_

"_Yes, I have been. I've listened to every word."_

"_Telling people what we know right now would just send them into a tailspin," _she'd said. "_They'd barely be able to get through the day without jumping at shadows and pointing fingers at their neighbors."_

"_So we say nothing?"_

"_It's better than _doing_nothing," _she'd said. When she faced Hope again, the tears were gone._ "__Look – either you want people to trust you, or you want them to be so afraid they don't trust anyone. That's what being a leader means, Hope. That's what being a Guardian _is. _You make the hard choices because you hope in the end it'll come out right."_

"_That's awful, Light."_

"_That's _life."

Hope's feet dragged in their paces, barely able to lift even an inch off the ground now. Was that the best answer he could hope for? Making a hard choice against a threat that couldn't be understood, and hoping in the end whatever consequences came back to devour him wouldn't be too dire? That couldn't be right. _These things are here for a reason, _Hope thought as he stumbled forward, and not for the first time. _Phobos and whatever other core Lightning's seen in her time as Guardian – they're not without some kind of meaning. They were made from something, and they had to _come _from something, too._

Even if he had no evidence to support this feeling.

Perhaps the lack of a point was, indeed, the point. Perhaps Phobos and all its other tumescent brethren were simply excretions of chaos, unknowable and inexplicable, never to be contained. The only purpose one could apply to them with any measure of success was that they existed to be destroyed.

_Is that what she thinks? Is that what she wants me to believe, too? _Hope had to admit that Phobos' behavior so far was just like every core he had heard about previously: reckless, random, and all the more lethal for it – that's what an oblivion core was. _And is that really so different from chaos?_

And yet he couldn't resist the thought of applying meaning to it, of inserting some kind of label and understanding to what seemed to exist in spite of such simple facts. _They've been around longer than I have, and they only came into my life directly when I was made Primarch – they tried to kill me. Kill all of us. There has to be some reason for that. _But what?

"_What_?" The other Hope thought, all but screeching to a halt along the other one's train of thought.

"_Quiet," _Serah snapped. "_Not yet."_

Both Hopes watched as the one cast his thoughts back once again to that awful night. Nearly half his Conseil had become Guardians only a year ago in another core's assault, all of them wishing for just one thing as the darkness of death came upon them: _Let me live again. Let me have just one more chance to make my life mean something. _Lightning had been the only one not present at the contract signing, which sent up a round of reactions ranging from suspicion to flat out dread once they all woke up later – and escaped from the morgue.

All she would say on the subject was that this particular evil had made himself known to her sooner – "Long before any of you could realize even He has a place inside Eden." It was an ominous sentiment none of them enjoyed to hear, but only Hope had confronted her about it later under the moonlight, when the rest of the Conseil had scattered to their respective chambers, trying to assess all that they had become.

_That must have been the night, _Hope thought, grasping at any little bit of comfort he could, locked in a tailspin of his own. _That must have been the night when I realized how I felt. _He wouldn't call it love – not then, not yet. But it was the promise of it, the suggestion of something close enough. Lightning could be cold and detached, yes, and she could have all the social grace of a scalpel slicing into a bared, offered arm, making the blood ooze up fresh – but after a life-time of being catered to with incessant yessing and obedience purely because of who his father was, Hope found her challenges refreshingly direct. He looked into her eyes on that night, hoping for answers and finding only terrible truths, and what he saw made it all easier to bear. Hope saw not some frozen, bitter woman intent on spitting nails with every uttered word, but instead saw a woman constantly at work making fear into courage, turning every weakness into kindling for strength.

And he loved that. He admired it. He respected it above all.

Little though Hope liked to know that she had been enduring the burden of fighting all on her own, Hope knew he there was an undeniable value to it all the same. Lightning had been strong for so long, fighting to help protect others just as much as she had been fighting to keep herself safe. So what if she did so in secret, and so what if not that the secret expanded to include half a dozen more people, it could was still very much a pact they must keep safe and silent between them? Hope would admire the bravery it took to find honor in a lie – hell, he couldn't even deny that it _was _brave, even if he could hardly imagine the pain such courage must have brought along with it. Hope would respect both the strength and the surely foolhardy stubbornness required to do what she had to do for so long, and so alone.

And he would live up to it. He would be its equal and its match, even if for no other reason than Lightning deserved to know she had someone at her back.

"Hope... Hope, I think it's in _your _vault."

These words ripped him clean out of his comforting thoughts. "What did you say?"

Lightning pointed. Her hand was steady this time, the way any trained fighter would face off against dread. "Phobos... He's in the vault they were making for you after... After the attack."

Hope never once stopped to think that Eden's undertakers and entombers had been a bit too keen to get started on his burial ground after the core attack left him and half his Conseil understandably mangled. Because really, they were just doing their job – even if it didn't necessarily apply in his situation. Hope had woken up in a morgue, waiting for his turn next to be thrown onto the slab – which wasn't as bad as it might have been, considering _Snow _had been the one about to undergo the autopsy. He had the scar to prove it, an awful, jagged, monstrous thing he kept hidden beneath high collar shirts and thick, tightly buttoned coats.

Hope felt Serah pause and take a long, rattling breath. "_Oh god, I almost didn't catch that," _she thought, the weight in her voice taking the place of any tear. "_I almost _forgot."

"_Don't worry about it," _Hope thought in a rush, eager to comfort and to keep the connection from faltering. "_At least you remembered now, right?"_

They didn't have a chance to finish his tomb, of course. The miraculous recovery Hope Estheim and his Conseil made was quickly forced through the press to drown out the erroneous reports of their tragic, sudden deaths. Quitting work on the new Primarch's tomb halted just as swiftly as the search for his replacement – though, he would later be told, _"__There really wasn't anyone else in ready mind. We were just about to draw up a list when you came stumbling back into the Palace – Sir."_

That Phobos should take up residence where Hope's bones were meant to rest seemed grimly amusing to him. _At least someone's putting it to use._

Before Hope could voice this joke aloud, time seemed to jar forward, throwing him off its rails. Too much happened in so short a span that he could hardly breathe to watch it unfold.

Lightning clawed her fingers into the air, creating a warm, pink glow that lit up the far end of the crypt. Her Palace uniform dissolved in this light, the way paper crinkles and dies under a flame, vanishing to become armor finely shaped, polished, and enhancing her already imposing frame. She showed her teeth once the transformation was complete and slowly unwound her grip out of Hope's hand, her eyes wide and her hair whirling in a tangle as she thrashed her head.

Another scream from Phobos rent the air. Could he sense his death drawing near? Did he know her name?

Lightning split her fingers into another shimmering gleam of light. It was different from the one she used to transform. A pocket, Hope thought it was called. She'd tried to show him how to do it before, but all his efforts had been in vain. Hope watched, breathless, as Lightning began to unsheathe a weapon out of nothing. It was long, silver, cruelly carved and angled like a jagged bolt to match her namesake.

"You stay right there, Hope!" she shouted, not bothering to look at him. "You stay _right there. _I won't let it get to you again."

_Again? _"But we're in this together, Light. Remember?" He wouldn't panic. He _wouldn't. _"You don't have to fight alone anymore – I'm here with you!"

But she wasn't listening.

Hope watched as his hand reached out to hold her arm, an impulsive, convulsive, frightened grab – but his fingers slid off the armor, leaving only pale damp streaks that faded in the cold, musty air. He couldn't catch her, he couldn't hold her – she was like smoke in his hands.

Hope took a breath and choked, tasting death like a blade that perched on the back of his tongue. She was leaving. She was leaving him behind. She was leaving him again.

… _Again?_

"_Is he remembering?" _Hope asked Serah.

"_He is if you are," _she said.

Hope forced himself to move. "Light, wait! Wait for me!"

Lightning darted into the crypt that was meant to be the home of Hope's eternal rest, not knowing that he was so close on her heels. He followed fast and watched, stunned, as his flashlight caught the distorted horror that was her target. _Phobos._

This was the first time Hope had a chance to look upon the threat plaguing his city – and he barely knew how to make sense of it.

Phobos was nothing more than a mass of shadow and slits oozing red, sore and swollen and _shrieking _from a mouth that could expand and vanish on any point of its miserable, swollen mass. It had sequestered itself far back in the corner of the abandoned crypt, where it grew into a lump twice as tall as Snow, who was perilously close to seven foot even, to say nothing of the boots he wore. _My tomb. His home now._

The eyes, when Hope's own finally found them, were familiar shade of green, vibrant and cut into sharp angles like a diamond laid down flat. _My eyes. Mom's eyes. _But they were too bright, too keen – unearthly. The face, such a face it had, was fog and shadow, possessed of parts that clearly came from a mask carved to fit another face full of sharp edges and angles. Flecks of gold caught the light, like wings extended around the shattered chin, the sunken forehead, and the glaring, blaring eyes. It was as if a statue carved in all its splendor had been given life – and then been given an infection intent to kill.

Hope stared at the horror, and knew with the quiet voice of certainty not felt since he had looked upon his death and _defied it_, that this was not a thing new to him. Phobos was a fearful, fretting thing clearly in agony – and it was an agony Hope knew. Fear consuming, fear devouring, fear feasting upon the very source that gave it life – yes, Hope knew that all too well.

But... how? _Have I been here before? Why do I know this? Why is any of this familiar? _Hope's heart shivered, a wary, uneasy thing. He held is hand out, eager to cast a light of his own, to have it pass through him and electrify ignite every vein alive. _Why have I seen this before?_

"_Am I remembering?" _He asked Serah.

"_People usually see the truth before the end."_ She had nothing else to say.

Phobos held out a hand, three-fingered, long, and segmented like bare bone. Its head shook once, twice, before it reared up, pulling a long, maggot-white body out the oozing red pus of its core. Was it trying to get away – or was it moving into position to strike? Hope didn't think it was either. _It's just trying to move. It can barely think it's so scared._

But how did he _know_?

Lightning stepped forward, sliding into a wide stance, her blade held aloft as she took one more step and _swung_ –

And Phobos spoke. "_**Claire – not like this. Not... Not again...**_"

"Hope, are you watching?" Lightning called out above this new voice. She was demanding and defiant, her teeth bared as she swept over the miserable, quivering mass beneath her feet. "This is the last one. This is the last time, I swear!"

But the voice haunted Hope more than he knew how to express. "Lightning... What are you...?"

"**Claire – **_**please**_..."

Lightning's blade swept across the creature's throat, opening a gash wide enough for a grown man to fit his hand inside the wound. Mist rather than blood began to gush out, a dark, black tangle that plummeted over the floor, racing across the dusty concrete as if a dam had cracked.

The screams stopped. The trouble didn't.

* * *

"_Serah?"_

"_This is way too important to make a side-bar conversation about, Hope. You really, really, _really _need to watch carefully."_

"_All right,"_ he said, knowing it wasn't, not knowing if it would be – but how he wanted it to end up that way. "_All right."_

* * *

The air grew too thick and cold to breathe but oh, how Hope tried. The smell of death was pungent, repugnant, reigning over every other gasp or chance of air. All the light in the room had reduced itself down to a point so narrow, thin, and weak that nothing more could be seen save a jagged edge of Lightning's face.

_Just like that night under the moon. Just like the night I died and came back – she dragged me back, dragged us all back from death's mouth. And that's the night I loved her. _Lightning looked now as she did back then: brilliant and blazing, anger alive and hardening her face but the tears were there as well, tears Hope understood even less now that he saw them for a second time.

He only knew he hated to see them there.

_Please don't cry. Please, please, I don't want you to ever be so sad that words fail you, that strength escapes you, where all you can do is cry in the end. I don't want that for you Lightning. Not again. Not alone. Not like this._

Hope reached the one bare part of her neck between the armor and her hair, reaching... stretching...

And the darkness grew too thick, swallowing him, erasing her.

_Is this it? Is this the end again? _If this was death, it was far worse than when it had come the first time. Was this his punishment for not giving his life some kind of value? _I didn't know there was a time limit – I didn't know I had a cap on that kind of expectation. _But then, Hope hadn't read too much of the fine print. He'd been far too eager to see his friends and himself restored back to life, given a chance to make themselves matter.

He tried to remember the faces he'd seen on that awful, cold night locked inside that waiting room, as if he were a child being called in to get a scolding from the nanny since his parents never had the time for it. There'd been more than one face staring at him across that large, oaken desk: the mask and the face hidden beneath it. Hope was sure of it – but he could hardly see through the veil that obstructed the face, and so he wasn't sure, in the end, _what _he had seen. All he knew was that the voice was a man's, and that the fury and violence and brutality that was contained within every hardened syllable and laugh scared him the way he'd never been scared before.

"_I'm not Death," _the half-masked man had said, cackling as he did. _"I'm here to grab you before They can sink Their hands in. No, I'm not Death – I'm so much worse than that."_

Was he going back there, to that room, to that desk, to face off with a thing worse than Death, only to be told how he'd failed? Was life even a thing you _could _fail – perhaps. If it was given back to you with a set of terms and conditions. But wasn't it still his life in the end? Hope wondered and came up with no answers as he fell, as he floated, blind and curious.

… And then he heard a voice. Lightning was speaking again.

"Oblivion cores. Remember what I said to you on that night a year ago? When we stood in the garden and watched the moon pass over head? I said they're a contamination, a scrap of chaos bursting out to poison any part of Eden it can find. They swarm around us, invisible to all but a Guardian's eye."

The darkness ebbed at the sound of her voice, as if it obeyed the command inherent within her tone. But only Lightning's eyes could be seen, the pupil as large and dark as a new moon, obliterating and cruel. Hope strained to see through the haze. She held out a hand to him, the weapon still clasped in the other. Behind her, Phobos was still twitching, its screams now no more than a rasping, gutted hiss.

"Light... What the hell are you talking about?" Hope asked. Not his finest question, but this was not his finest hour.

"The truth," she said, her voice as cold as it was sincere. "You asked me where they came from, remember? On the night you died and came back to me. You asked me then, and now I'm telling you the truth. I said it was the work of a monster, a bitter, jealous thing who would never rest as long as there were humans to use, hearts to feed on, and lives to corrupt."

"... And that's true," Hope said, desperate, scared. "Isn't it? It's all true."

Lightning shook her head. "The lie was in one word. It's not a monster, Hope. It's a man – just one man. A man so lonely and scared he's forgotten what it means to make fear into strength. A man who's been trapped for years in the dark, waiting for light or hope to get in – but it doesn't. That's how the darkness – Chaos, a thing worse than death – gets him instead. And it was fear that made himself think he could be a Guardian of it. Fear that made him think he could master it all."

Hope stared at her, his heart shuddering, his breath shallow and unsatisfying. Her eyes were all Hope could see – and they were blinded by tears. He shouldn't know what she was talking about, but he did. Oh, how he did. Hope didn't want to close his eyes, so sure, so terrified he would be back in that darkness again. So sure, so terrified, that he would close his eyes only to open them back up and realize he'd been dreaming all along – dreaming this life of importance, dreaming this life of friends and power and evils to fight and lives to save. Because really, he was trapped, still there, still waiting for a light that wouldn't fade, and a hope that might make him live up to his name.

"Light... What...?"

"You told me about a dream you had once – the original you. The first you. The first one I ever met. You said you had a dream that something worse than death came for you, calling your name, knowing your every hidden fear. And I didn't believe it could actually happen until moments after it did and even then, all I could do was laugh. We became Guardians together, Hope. You and I made a promise to protect Eden for all it was worth – and I hadn't even bothered to listen when you needed me to."

The tears bled out as Lightning closed her eyes. Hope wanted to wipe them away, but he couldn't move a muscle. He could only imagine what it must be like to be able to move his hand.

"That was a while ago now – that was another you. I was hardly anything like the me you know now. All those lives we lived, reversed, then lived again... And I could never help you like I could now. You were always having the same dream, always resulting in the same wish: You didn't want to be_left behind._" She was weeping, weeping with barely a sound granted to her tears. Only her words mattered, and they destroyed Hope as readily as they rebuilt him again._ "_You never wanted to be alone, Hope. You were always so terrified we would all go where you couldn't follow – and then you did it first. To me. The shadows came and took you first and I couldn't stop them. I couldn't save you. And it's all my fault."

Her hand was on his face now, her fingers ice cold through the gloves, freezing Hope's blood beneath the skin where she touched. She ran the frozen tips down his cheek, tracing his own tears. "Oblivion cores aren't monsters, Hope. They're broken pieces of a larger nightmare, falling down and scattering across every single Eden you and I have ever lived in. They're the fear I couldn't save you from. They're the nightmare you can't escape. And that's why I'm here. Always, always here. To cut you free again."

… _But that's wrong, _he thought. Both the Hope witnessing this in the memory, and the Hope alive inside him now._That's not fair. What good is a life if it's not meant to offer any comfort to itself_?

Serah cried out – in panic or happiness? Hope couldn't tell. Nor did he wait to find out. Lightning was there in front of him, crying, smiling – Lightning was there, standing with her heart bared and telling the truth Hope had long sought to find.

He couldn't leave her alone. He couldn't leave her like _that._

The mind and the body clashed, contracted, and met as one again. Just as they had when Serah first put him back into this memory, Hope found he could move the body of his memory now that they were bound with a common goal, a simple thought: _this is wrong and it's time to make it right._

He would use hope as his last resort, would find a way to make hoping itself into an art –

Hope held out his hand in the memory, in his mind, and he _reached_ –he reached into the darkness, into the years, into the tangled lines and layers of layers of looping merciless time. A dark fire was burning in his veins again, light and heat he could not conquer, saw no point in trying to destroy... Because an Arte is not to be silenced, but left to flourish.

* * *

Somewhere in the far corners of Memoria, Yeul clapped her hands. Noel joined in a beat later, smirking. Even Caius had to smile.

Somewhere in the far corners of Hope's mind, he heard Serah laugh. "_Oh, _good! _You got it this time!" _Which was, all things considered, quite the adorable understatement.

* * *

Here's what happened after Hope remembered.

_I get it now. I get it,_ Hope thought. He almost wanted to laugh. _Now I know why it's as obvious as my name – and why it took me so long to see it, regardless. _Who was he talking to? Himself. All the selves that had come to this moment without thinking to break free and change their own memory. All the selves that hadn't moved their hands to help Lightning either out of fear or doubt. _You can never tell what hope is until you lack it – but what if hope is your Arte? What if it's something you have that, no matter how often you overlook it or try to act without it, you can never, ever live without? I'm a Guardian, and Artes aren't something you just stop using one day. Just like it isn't always what you're strongest or best at: it can be something you want and can't get. Like hope._

He said it again, poring over the word as he had never taken pride at his name. _Hope. That's what mine is. Because it's who I am._

The pinprick of light that had swallowed himself and Lightning whole now shuddered, clenched, almost as if it wanted to close.

Serah screamed. _"__The thread! Use the thread, Hope! Hurry, _now!"

Realization dawned on Hope the way the sun peers over the horizon on a long, flat plane. First a few streaks that stain the sky brighter and lighter than what it once was, and then – there it is. The sun. Knowledge. Wisdom, and perhaps a sense of restored hope.

Hope was no longer in the body of the memory. He was back inside his own, back in Memoria, but reaching on and through all the tangled webs and time-lines and lives that had every other Guardian he'd met so worried. He still bore the bruises, dried blood, and aching knuckles that had nagged at him before opening the door to Serah's garden, but alive inside his mind was a light and a life that made all the pain his body felt shrink and fall back, unworthy of his attention. He knew. He _remembered. _And now was the time to _change._

With the comms-link still safe in the pocket against his chest, Hope reached into his pocket, never hesitating, never stopping to think. _She said I was afraid of being alone, that I'd dreamed of it for years – well that's nothing to how scared I am of being the one to leave. _Hope eyed the small bit of metal in his hands. The thread Yeul had wound around that odd, roughly pointed star was burning with a bright golden light, so brilliant it hurt to look at for long.

What was it Lightning had said? _"__A man who's been trapped for years in the dark, waiting for light or hope to get in – but it doesn't." _Hope refused to look away from this small shard of light, no matter how much it hurt him. If it was for Lightning, he could do anything – even suffer. And then find a way to stop it from ever happening again – together.

_That's the key, isn't it? _He thought, smiling. _That's the choice I'll have to keep making no matter what. _Together, _always_.

… So what had stopped him from choosing this all those other times before?

_Don't think about that. Don't think about it – just_ _do _this_._

Hope began to unwind the thread. Such a simple thing to do, and yet it had such unexpected consequences of power. The words flowed from him the same way the strange, smoky blood leaked out of Phobos' throat, the way the truth could come gushing from a heart that could no longer hide its surfeit of love. Hope looked right into the strange swirling darkness, imagining he was looking into Lightning's eyes, and he took a long, satisfying breath.

"There's always a choice – isn't that right, Claire?" he asked, using her real name, her birth name, the one he'd never been told nor thought to ask. It was her name to hold and share as she pleased and he used it now not to assume or mock, but because he wasn't even sure he would have another chance. "There's always a road to take, one more bend to the path. I've always seen that, but I'm not afraid of it anymore, not like I used to be. Because Chaos is nothing but a tangled mass of choices. Endless, always, everlasting. Chaos is a question without an answer – just like hope. Both are inexplicable and impossible to grasp, and yet we always work so hard reaching out for one over the other. I wonder why?"

He repeated this to himself, in his head. _I wonder why? Why didn't I choose you before, all those other times I came here? _Was he missing something?

The final bit of thread came off at last. Hope held it up in his hands and watched as its light shined on high, evaporating the shadows that had crouched down hard and compact around him. He held up the thread, offering it to the light that expanded beyond him and high above, like the lid of a cage ascending to free him. He offered the thread to those eyes he imagined, eyes which were now free of tears, glistening with something new, something else. Hope would have hesitated to name it before, but he saw it now for what it was. Love. It was love.

And with this, one of the three infernal pillars keeping Lightning trapped quivered before it shattered.

She was there in front of Hope, the way a glass at night reflects only part of an image. Ghostly and faint, but with the source still _there_, somewhere, just waiting to be saved. Lightning – no, _Claire_ – had her back turned on the man who would be god, the man who would call himself such if only because the alternative was far too grim to bear. The man who called himself Bhunivelze, a name ripped from legend, because his own could hardly satisfy the ambition to be beyond a simple man.

_The man I was, _Hope realized, not knowing why he was starting to laugh. _The man I was when the Chaos came in and made me too afraid to be brave._

Claire's eyes were on Hope as she reached out to let the thread's light bleed across her hand, basking in its warmth. It passed through her, the way light passes into and over glass. But Hope knew she was real, he knew she could be found again.

"That's one pillar broken," she said, smiling. Pride warmed her expression, making every line of worry and fear dissolve. "Two more to go. Think you can handle the rest?" It was a challenge, playful and out of place, but oh god how he loved to hear her joking, teasing, almost laughing.

"Watch me," Hope said, winding his half of the thread around his wrist, nodding as she started to do the same. "Watch me get it right this time, Claire."

She nodded.

In his head, Serah said, "_Two pillars left. Hurry, Hope. Close your eyes, think, and _remember them."

* * *

The pillar on this time-line was another core to fight and face.

Deimos was its name. Hope remembered _that_, at least. Just as he remembered the time-line this shadow had grown on, one more cancerous blot of fear that dribbled off the original tumescent mass – himself, the first him, the source of all this mess.

"_I should be a little nicer to the guy," _Hope thought, knowing Serah could hear him. _"__It's not like he knew it would all turn out like this."_

"_Actually, Hope... You were kind of hoping it would."_

"_That's awful."_

"_That's what fear does you to."_

"_But not anymore."_

Serah was the leader here on this time-line, a warrior queen made to rule Eden when it became clear she wielded not only the courage and the grace to make her throne-fit, but the skills to combat Deimos and all its hordes. The people of Eden knew the threats they were up against in this life, just as they knew the throne was a bane to cowards and cold hearts everywhere. Rule with strength as you will, and rule with grace when you can, but rule with an iron fist hidden in a velvet glove _always_.

"_I know what you're thinking – why not Lightning?" _Serah asked. He could hear her smirking.

"_I didn't say that."_

"_No, but you _thought _it. And I'll tell you why: because Lightning didn't want to do it. They had the court declare her unfit and incompetent in front of the entire city – and she just laughed about it. I never understood why until... Well, until I got here."_

In this time-line, at the time of this pillar's destruction, Serah was a queen hardened beyond fear, charging perilous and proud into the heart of battle. There would be no time to tears, no quarter given to terror... Because Deimos _was _terror, soundless, silent, watchful and persistent. And while a soldier might be trained not to jump at shadows, a leader would pick, pare, and pull it apart no matter how close such darkness strayed near. Serah had gone first into the core's lair, rebellious, defiant, living up to the Farron code known throughout her land: "_May I die before I give you power over me."_

Or, as she had told her husband Snow on the night they were to wed, "All being a Guardian means is that you live knowing you'll have to make choices without any room to regret them later."

But what regrets do the dead have? And what about those who live and die as themselves countless, _countless_ times, over and over again? What regrets could accumulate and fester on a soul stuck in the same loop of live – all because one man didn't want to be alone again?

"_I really fucked it up, didn't I?"_

"_Yes – but at least you remembered you did."_

What Deimos lacked in kindness, it made up for in cunning. Because terror feasts on all the rich potential of what might be there. Terror, like his brother fear, lavishes, ravishes, and adores a possibility, no matter how curious or made or far from true it might be. Terror was just the gap between what a heart knows and the doubt that, in the end, it really doesn't know a thing at all.

"_And that's how I felt – the first me, the one who started all of this."_

"_Yes, but you're _different _now. You have to be. You have to _remember."

And Hope did. He really did.

Stumbling in the wake of their fallen queen, bleeding and bruised and screaming just to have the sound of their own voices driving them past the point of exhaustion, Hope and Lightning cornered the fiend that had struck Serah dead. They had nothing left to lose but their lives, and with revenge as the one prize left to claim, death didn't feel quite so bad.

It was Hope who destroyed the core on this time-line. It was Hope who swung the sickle ends of his double-sided scythe and said, "Not now. Not this time. I won't let you win again."

"_Did he already know? Did Lightning give him that speech?"_

"_He did because she did, yes."_

"_So why didn't it all end here?"_

But Hope got his answer soon after – the killing blow that sent Deimos down to death had been his one last, greatest effort in that particular life. Hope collapsed, face down and broken, spilling blood and his last breath as Lightning began to laugh.

Not because it was funny. And not because she was nervous. But because when a person breaks, sometimes it's a destruction too great for tears. And so, they snap.

Hope watched in the memory as he lay there dying, as his soul rose up swiftly, flying into the warmth that Memoria could give to the dearly departed and newly dead – and then he changed his mind. He held up his hand and reached out again, drawing on the light of his life before it could fade away for good, and he _pulled _himself back.

"_What are you doing?" _Serah asked.

"_Who says I can only defy death just the once? I'm a Guardian of Chaos, right? Watch me live up to the name."_

Only one thing had been missing on this time-line, just one little thing that would have led Hope back again. He had charged into the core alone with Lightning clawing at his back – and originally he had never made it out, just as Phobos had dragged him in close and choked him past the point of death.

But he would make it different this time. Different from his memory. The thread wasn't the only part that had power – for what was the point of strength if the one wielding it was hardly worthy of its grace? Hope had lived and seen and fought and wondered long enough until in the Chaos he found his Arte at last.

He had strength enough to give himself just the smallest scrap of life to get his mouth moving, to get the words flowing, to have his eyes flutter open like dying wings. Hope had strength enough to have this version of him defy death long enough to reach out a hand to give Lightning just this one small bit of comfort – something to stop her from breaking even further apart.

"I'm coming back, Claire. Don't worry. I'll always come back – and I'll find a way to get you out of this. Not everything is lost. Not yet."

And tears in her eyes, her hands wrapped around his bleeding, dying face, Lightning had nodded. She nodded once and kissed him, kissed his cold mouth that had only just now gone slack and dead. Kissed his cheeks, kissed his lightless eyes, kissed him, kissed him – and then let him go.

Not because she wanted to, but because she must. Bhunivelze took her back again, laughing at all the ways she'd failed him.

On one time-line that was slowly being overwritten and replaced, Lightning had taken these words to heart and despaired the way all hearts break when their last chance of hope is ripped clean from their grasp. But Hope's words with his last, quaking breath had reminded her of her own once, in ages past. _"__Rebellion runs in the family."_

Let Bhunivelze talk. So what if he did? She didn't have to listen. She had a whole other set of words to play back inside her head.

"_I'll find a way to get you out of this. Not everything is lost. Not yet."_

Bhunivelze couldn't understand why she smiled.

* * *

"_You might actually get to pull this off, Hope. I'm impressed."_

"_Don't sound so shocked, Serah."_

* * *

Back in Memoria the light returned again, blinding Hope, surrounding him. But it returned Hope to Lightning's side – again.

The man that for pity's sake Hope couldn't quite bring himself to call Bhunivelze, stumbled on the terrible throne from which he reigned, rearing back. A crack appeared in the mask that was his face, splintering the masterly crafted shell almost in half. The man who, to stave of fear and the belief in his own powerlessness, called himself Bhunivelze covered his face with one hand. Vain and broken, but not defeated – not quite yet.

The man Hope had been before Chaos came in flashed his pointed teeth as he screamed. "_**But I won! But I found her – I've got her! I won't go back to being alone, not again!**_"

"You won't have to," Hope said to it, to the himself that was born long before he had come into being. Strange that there could be two utterly different selves born from the same basic mass of spirit.

"_Yeah, tell me about it," _Serah laughed.

"You won't have to be alone again," Hope continued. "Because I know why you were born. I know why you call yourself god – and I know why you're so eager to have your _soul _back again: so you can keep this loop going. So you can make all this, the contracts, the Guardians, the time-lines, happening over and over again."

Hope felt rather than saw Claire's smile. He wouldn't take his eyes off his breaking, shrieking self, similar to the way he couldn't tear his eyes off of Phobos in the crypt. "But that's over with. All of it, everything stops now – I'm here to end it."

"_**Better versions of you have tried**_."

"No they haven't," Hope said, catching himself in the lie. "Did you think I wouldn't notice?" he asked, smirking, wanting to laugh the way Claire was now that he had Bhunivelze cornered like this. "That's my face you're wearing beneath your mask, and I know what I look like when I lie. I've had to lie nearly every day of my life. About my family. About myself. About how both made me feel."

His mother kneeling at the side of his bed, her lip split and her eyes full of tears, but her hands and words were sure, her hold on him tight. _"__We just have to pretend, Hope. We just have to lie for a little while, until everything's all right again."_

For one fleeting moment, Bhunivelze actually looked scared. It was in this moment that Hope decided to move. Using the hand bound by the fated thread, Hope reached back to retrieve the survival knife from where he'd stored it in his back pocket.

Which is when Serah said, _"One more pillar, Hope! Just one more! Break it, destroy it! You can't stop here – not now, you've come way too far to stop now!_"

Though she was still but a pale reflection, Claire put her hand on Hope's, their red threads overlapping. Her eyes were as unreadable as her expression, but fresh tears were inside them again.

Hope understood these tears at last. Happiness – she was _happy. _Looking at her tears, he swore to himself not to ever let her cry for another reason besides pride ever again.

_One more pillar. One more core to break – one more fear to find, dig out by the root, and let it by its own self hang._

And Hope knew exactly when it was: the time Bhunivelze was made.

* * *

"_He's not actually going to do it, is he?"_

"_He is," _Yeul said, digging her shoulder into Noel's side.

Caius merely grinned, shaking with the force of his silent laughter._ "Well, I'll be damned."_

* * *

Traveling to that memory was a strange, awful thing. But Serah forced him there and Hope clung to the sensation, however painful it was. It was a birth in reverse, returning to the darkness and its suffocating grasp not to find comforts but weak points, cracks and flaws and faults into which he could dig his hands and tear it all apart again.

Hope watched at the first him, the very first Guardian of Eden, fall into the very first trap set by man's own hands: doubt. Doubt and fear, with a far bit of pride on the side for good measure. Such things would always ruin the human mind, he supposed, in a way that fates were not written in the stars but inside the cells of blood and the path of veins and the rooting little forks of marrow. He watched as that doubt and fear and pride became a shadow he could not easily overthrow – until it devoured him, swallowing him up and snatched him out of Claire's hand.

And in the darkness, instead of letting himself scream in the silence, Hope leaned down and reached through the ages to _talk_.

"Listen to me. You – yeah, you. The you that I'm not, and the you I hope will become me some day. Listen to me.

"There's a story my mother used to tell me," Hope said, knowing that somewhere in Memoria, Noel was rolling his eyes, and that perhaps Yeul was shushing him while somewhere close by, Caius laughed. "She used to tell me a story about a man abandoned by everything he'd ever known and loved – not because these people were cruel, but because the man had turned into something he was never meant to be. The man had been called a magician, a leader, a doctor, a director – everything under the sun short of god."

Hope paused. "Can you see where I'm going with this?" He spoke on, even if this first version of him didn't.

"Those who didn't like the man simply said he was the father, the father of lies and fear, of loss and terror, but my mother swore to me, no matter how many times I asked or how often she'd sit down to say this story, that the man only became a cruel, clutching coward because he'd forgotten one simple fact."

Hope leaned down as close as he could, ripping through time, through darkness, through lives, until his voice was pressed against his cowering first self's ear. "Do you know what it was? I doubt it. So I'm here to tell you. '_There is always a light, no matter how dark the shadow. There is always hope, no matter how deep the despair.'"_

He pulled back just far enough to give himself some space to breathe before he began to talk again. "Fear is there not to stop you, but to give you something to stomp into dust as you press onward. Fear is what you use to move forward, walking and living as you wish. You were born when I forgot that. You were born in that one second where I forgot what the value of my own weakness could be: they exist to be destroyed, not to win."

The first Hope shuddered, swallowing his tears as he ran his hand cross his eyes, freeing them from the blinding power of grief. "Am I dreaming?"

"No," Hope said to himself. "But you can tell yourself you are, if that'll make you feel better."

The first Hope smiled – alone and lost in the dark that was his own power's shadow rising up to feast upon him, he _smiled_.

And the last pillar shattered. It was kindness that won out in the end.

Claire's voice rose up, drawing Hope back to himself, to his body, to the present one so far removed from the first. She was talking to Bhunivelze, who lay crumbled and shivering at the foot of his throne. His mask was gone now, broken, the world around him crumbling. And Hope had no pity to spare.

"You can rest now," Claire said, watching the man who would be god twitch and shriek. "I don't know why you're making such a fuss. You should learn to make friends with death. I hear Yeul isn't so bad."

"Just watch out for Noel," Hope added, joining in. "He's got one nasty right hook."

They looked at each other, Claire no longer half-faded, Hope no longer blind and unaware. They looked at each other, fully understanding, no more or less than their true, bared selves.

"Ready?"

"At your command," Hope said.

Claire smiled.

Survival knife raised and hands clasped, the red thread knotted between them, Hope and Claire closed the distance between them and the broken man that would have been happy to die as long as he could be remembered by his chosen name. They said it to him now not to honor him but to mock, laughing as they looked this bitter, fearful, twisted thing in its face.

"Bhunivelze," they said, both Hope and Claire's voices clashing as they hovered over this wreck of a man. "Bhunivelze – it's finished."

Not hesitating, not even pausing to glance at each other, their linked hands darted forward, fingers wrapped around the knife's hilt. The blade cracked through Bhunivelze's flayed mask, shattering what was left, ripping the warped, crumbling face in half.

The thread on their wrists burned, scorching them with a light that would blind if they started at it too long – but Hope and Claire felt no pain in that moment. No pain at all. There was some happiness even suffering couldn't contaminate.

"Nice one," Claire said.

Hope smiled. "Thanks. But I doubt I could've gotten through it alone, you know."

Claire nodded. She knew.

Forcing the words out after she chewed on the corner of her lip, Claire said, "You'll keep an eye out for me, won't you? After all this... You'll come find me, right?" Her eyes lowered from Hope to the dissolving shadow once known as Bhunivelze. Was it out of respect for his last moments, or simply to prove to herself that yes, indeed, he was gone now, put to rest? Hope couldn't tell – and he'd wait to see if Claire told him.

But she didn't. "I know it's been weird between us from the start, but all I ever wanted was to get it right. To have one life with you that didn't turn out full of broken promises and regrets."

"That's what I want, too," Hope said, moving through the pain and the burning threads until he found her hand. "That's all I want, Claire. Of course I'll find you. I won't rest until I do. You're the one who worked so hard for so long... And you were always alone in the end. That's not fair."

Claire's eyes flashed. "Damn right it's not," she said, squeezing his hand.

They turned to face each other.

"So. You gonna make it up to me, Hope?" she asked.

"I'd like to, if I can," Hope said. "There's some things in life that you can't question – you just _do _them. Right?"

"That's what it said in my contract, at least," Claire said.

They fell silent. A shared silence, a warm silence, the kind of silence that grows when there is love too great for words to express.

As the world around them crumbled, pulling them out of the frayed knots and mangled, tangled time-lines that even Death Themselves could not bear to let stand, Hope and Claire made a promise without speaking. They leaned forward, moving closer, their eyes sliding shut, their lips prepped for a kiss –

* * *

"_So, Yeul. What do you think?"_

"_It was Caius' idea, not mine."_

"_Yeah, but I'm not asking him – I'm asking _you."

"_I don't suppose _one_ more life could hurt... Especially since these loops are gone now... It would be such a waste not to give them some kind of gift after all this, don't you think?"_

"_You don't have to ask me, Yeul. I'm of a mind with you."_

"_See, even Caius agrees. Hope's earned it. They all have. Just one more shot at a normal life. What do ya say?"_

"_Fine. But let me handle Hope alone – you really shouldn't have punched him."_

"_You're not gonna let me live that down, are you?"_

"_No."_

"_I'll take Claire. You can help bring back the rest, Noel."_

"_Gee, thanks."_

"_It won't be so hard, Noel. Don't be mad. It's a brand new life on a brand new time-line, so free and alive and full of fresh chances. Hope and Claire are really the only ones that'll be tricky."_

"_Why's that?"_

"_We have promises to pass along. These sort of things require a gentle hand."_

"_Right, right. You gonna use the blessing this time, right? What was it again? The one Caius is always telling Hope's mom each time he moves her soul along through to the end?"_

"_May all your wounds be brief, and all your hopes immortal."_

"_Yeah, that's it. You know as far as sappy lines go, that one isn't half bad."_

"_... Noel?"_

"_What is it, Caius?"_

"_Shut up and get to work."_

* * *

**Notes: **Epilogue's next. It's not over _yet_.


	20. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Hope Estheim woke up at his desk, jarred from a dream as if someone had shaken his chair with all the strength two hands could contain. Half way across the city, Claire Farron threw herself to her feet and hit the ground running from her bed.

She had to find him. She had to _see _him.

_May all your wounds be brief, and all your hopes immortal._ Those words followed her like a shadow clings to every step, and they made her heart soar alive and wild inside her chest.

Back on the other side of town, Hope was on his feet as well, standing before his office door, the handle flexed, his heart eager to set his mind at rest. _May all your wounds be brief, and all your hopes immortal. _It was a strange phrase, one he couldn't remember hearing before the dream appeared – and yet, however strange it was, it filled Hope with a sense of comfort as if he'd been cradled inside a pair of warm, loving hands.

There was someone he had to meet. Someone he had to see again, one last time – they'd promised. There'd been a promise. Right?

_I'll be there soon, _they thought together about each other, unaware of how heavily one of them weighed on the mind of the other. They didn't know each other in this life – not now, not yet. But they would.

And then the dream faded, taking with it the sure, certain desire that there was someone out there waiting for them, eager to find them and make a home at last. In their respective parts of the city, Hope and Claire froze in place, standing in silence, waiting for the terrible aching _need _that had thrown them out of their dreams to come back. Waiting... waiting...

But it was gone – for now.

* * *

Tomorrow arrived, and with it another chance. The sun forced its way through the gray clouds of a broken storm, shining weak arcs of light in Hope and Claire's room, half a city apart. Fragments of the same dream haunted Hope and Claire as they set out on an angry, aimless walk, not quite ready to face their days: Hope at the office his father helped run, Claire at the school her sister had suckered her into attending.

_May all your wounds be brief, and all your hopes immortal. _Claire muttered this under her breath, her hands in the pockets of her cut off shorts. Hope thought it through again, wondering if it was part of a story his mother had read to him. Could he have forgotten it until now? But why now?

Distracted as such, they didn't notice who they were passing until they bumped into each other. Their shoulders grazed each other, not hard enough to send the other one spiraling off balance, but just enough to catch their attention. Blue eyes looked up and found the bright green – and Claire and Hope stopped. They stared.

"Do I know you?" Claire asked, speaking first, blurting out the first line that entered her head.

Hope smiled and shook his head. "No," he said – and then he was moving, fear was making him walk onward and away from this beautiful young woman.

He could feel her eyes on his back as he kept walking, cursing himself beneath his breath. _I should have said something. I should have said something. _Hope clenched his hands into fists, grit his teeth, and stopped.

He turned – but Claire wasn't there. She too had walked on, cursing under her breath, chastising herself such an awful, stupid line. And to a stranger no less!

_Tomorrow, _Hope thought, thinking back to the rose blonde hair that he'd so often seen walking this street before. She had to live close by, maybe in one of the dorms at the university just down on Sixth Avenue? _I'll talk to her tomorrow. _He would try again – he had to, he must. It wasn't a question of whether he could or could not. Hope just knew he _would._

And you know what? He did.

Unaware that he felt this way, Claire was currently telling herself the same thing. _Tomorrow. I'll talk to him tomorrow. _She recognized that handsome, bright face from all the local coffee spots and park benches she'd crashed on in between classes, eager to get away from campus life for a few hours. He'd been a nice distraction from all the homework she couldn't care less about finishing – until he'd get up and bustle away, presumably back to the office, considering his wardrobe of choice. But that didn't matter. Claire wouldn't let it matter. _Tomorrow for sure – I'll talk to him tomorrow._ She wouldn't let this chance at hope pass her by again.

And you know what? She didn't.

* * *

**Notes: **Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who has read this fic, which is my first multi-chapter fic of any serious length. Thank you to everyone who has commented, messaged, kudos'd, liked, etc. Thank you to everyone who has given me their time and attention. I hope I haven't let you down.

If there's one thing this fic has taught me, it's that you have to keep working through every moment of fear and doubt. Remember that next time it happens to you, okay?

Hope to see you soon.  
- Kristin.


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